


Take Me Out to the Crowd

by HugeAlienPie



Series: The Old Ball Game [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anger, Canon-Typical Violence, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Future Fic, Hand Jobs, Homophobic Language, M/M, Magical Danny Mahealani, Minor Allison Argent/Isaac Lahey/Scott McCall, Minor Braeden/Derek Hale, Minor Melissa McCall/Sheriff Stilinski, Pack Dynamics, Racist Language, Recreational Drug Use, San Francisco Giants, Spark Stiles Stilinski, baseball player Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 10:25:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2504453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HugeAlienPie/pseuds/HugeAlienPie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny has a magical weapon in one hand, a physical one in the other, and a well-trained Ibizan hound at his side. He's ready for anything.</p><p>Except the sight of Derek Hale, bruised, battered, and barely conscious, slumped in the hallway outside his condo. He is not ready for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Out to the Crowd

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is at last, the sequel to "Don't Care If I Never Get Back." If you haven't read that, this one won't make a lick of sense.
> 
> I waffled for a long time as to whether to write this. "Don't Care If I Never Get Back" caught lightning in a bottle, and I worried that any sequel would fall disastrously short of the bar it set. But there was still so much _story_ in this story. Stiles was promised a dog, for one. Scott was unhappy with how the first story left things between him and Stiles, and then there was baseball to consider. And then it became imperative that I answer the question no one thought to ask the first time around: _How's Danny holding up?_
> 
>  **Trigger warnings:** racist and homophobic language; canon-typical violence; out-of-control anger; recreational marijuana use.

When the outer proximity runes that run along the walls below the ceiling light up, Danny makes no move to stand. The inner runes are keyed to the entire pack, so even if Scott and Stiles are too drunk for the incantation, the system will stand down once they pass the inner boundary.

Two minutes later, the inner runes illuminate.

Danny sets his laptop on the coffee table and pushes to his feet. Yogi jumps up as well, huge ears straining forward, body trembling in anticipation of instructions. They move silently toward the door. Danny draws up the magic for a spell to immobilize anything or anyone on the other side, and the sound of it pulses in his ears like the ocean. As his foot hits the welcome mat, two weak thumps sound against the outside of the door. Danny grabs Stiles' special bat that looks like a gaudy souvenir but is actually rowan wood wrapped around pure iron, covered in runes and rubbed at every solstice and equinox with mistletoe oil.

Also, Danny's really good at hitting things with it.

Danny reaches toward the door. He has a magical weapon in one hand, a physical one in the other, and a well-trained Ibizan hound at his side. He's ready for anything.

Except the sight of Derek Hale, bruised, battered, and barely conscious, slumped in the hallway outside his condo. He is not ready for that.

"Lost them," Derek says. His words come with obvious effort in a voice thick and slurred. "Don't think they're...following...anymore." Derek looks at him with hazy eyes. His face twists into an expression that's more confusion than anything else, and he slurs, "Danny?" Then he passes out.

Danny _should_ bring Derek inside, rather than leaving him where anyone might trip over him. But he _wants_ to leave Derek's sorry ass in the hallway, tossed aside as casually as he'd tossed his pack aside—tossed _Stiles_ aside—not serving a constant irritation under Danny's skin, reminding them all of things that might've been.

But, no, Danny's not like that. Danny's the _nice_ one.

Derek may have lost his alpha bulk, but he's still damned heavy. Marin explained it once, years ago, how born werewolves have denser muscle than humans or bitten wolves. Eventually Danny says fuck it, accepts the energy burn required to convert his immobilization spell into a levitation spell, and floats the unconscious werewolf in the middle of the spacious living room. Yogi turns in circles beneath the floating body, sniffing with interest.

Danny dithers between guest room doors before choosing the one farthest from the front door. It's also closest to the back patio, but he has to hope that whatever's chasing Derek won't be interested in climbing three stories up. He gets Derek out of his bloodied jeans, t-shirt, and leather jacket and releases the levitation spell, dropping Derek onto the bed. He works rudimentary magical first aid on the nasty slash marks across Derek's chest that don't seem to be healing, covers him with the top sheet, and slips from the room, dragging a reluctant Yogi behind him.

Danny walks to the master suite and flops onto the bed. It's quarter to three. He's exhausted physically and metaphysically, but he's far from sleep. He turns to look at Yogi, stretched out on the bed with her ridiculous doe-head on Stiles' pillow, where it is not allowed. "Wanna go back to our _Orphan Black_ marathon?" he asks and takes the slurp of her pink tongue across his cheek (also forbidden) as close enough to assent for his needs.

An episode and a half later, as Fee and Alison prepare to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting suburbia, the outer proximity runes flicker to life once more and then wink out. Two tattoos near Danny's heart glow briefly, warming the skin around them. Something inside Danny uncoils, and a wave of exhaustion sweeps over him. By the time he shuts down his laptop, changes into a t-shirt and boxers, and shoos Yogi into her dog bed, he's depleted his last energy reserve and feels like he could sleep for a year.

Stiles stumbles into both his dresser and the chest at the foot of the bed, which speaks to at least moderate drunkenness, but the chuckle that comes once he's standing at the head of the bed sounds surprisingly lucid. "There's a dog-shaped dent in my pillow," he notes.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Danny says haughtily.

He should tell Stiles now. They don't need him coming across Derek without warning in the morning. On the other hand, it's past four, and they need sleep more than they need to discuss why the former alpha of Beacon Hills is in their guest room.

Stiles laughs and slides into bed, warm and naked against Danny's side. "Also," he says around a jaw-cracking, vodka-tinged yawn, "Scott says the house smells like Derek."

Danny turns onto his back, Stiles' palm warm and solid on his sternum. "He showed up around two. He's a mess."

Stiles snorts. "Like always."

"No, beaten up. Said someone had been following him."

"That's not new, either." Stiles exhales sharply and rubs his eyes with his free hand. "Jesus."

"I wasn't going to bring it up now. He thought he'd lost whoever it was, and the house is protected either way. Whatever's wrong with him, we can't fix it at four in the morning."

"Yeah. Okay, yeah." Stiles lies down more fully, tangling his feet with Danny's. He rests his hand on Danny's chest. His fingers are still only for a moment, then they start stroking.

"Stiles—"

"I can think of something better than sleep."

"You know, you say that _now_ , but when you wake up in the morning—"

"Afternoon," Stiles corrects with an impish smile. His fingers are stroking downward, long, confident lines over Danny's sternum, the end of the line dipping incrementally lower each time.

" _Afternoon_ ," Danny says between gritted teeth, because sometimes it's up to him to be the grown-up, to remind Stiles that, no matter how much money they have, they still have responsibilities they have to show up for. But he can't bring himself to actually reach up and _stop_ Stiles' hand, because it feels so damned good. Stiles has learned every damned one of Danny's turn-ons and hot spots and is _shameless_ in exploiting them. "You'll regret it."

The hand stills immediately, and Stiles rolls on top of him, arms braced on the bed, staring into Danny's eyes with his full focus. It's disarming. Stiles' attention is usually on five things at once; being the sole recipient of his regard can feel like too much weight to bear. " _Never,_ " he says fervently. " _Never,_ Danny, okay? I will never regret choosing you over _anything_." He searches Danny's face, Danny's not sure what for. "You...you know that, right?"

The vulnerability in his voice, the worry that Danny might not know it (he knows. He's always known) cracks Danny open. He lifts his arms to hold Stiles, hands splayed across Stiles' back. "Yeah," he says, "I know." He places his thumbs just to the sides of Stiles' spine and drags downward, pressing into muscle. He knows Stiles' turn-ons, too.

Stiles gasps and arches, pressing their groins against each other through the fabric of Danny's boxers. Danny's cock, which had been half-hard before, gives another interested twitch. Stiles laughs, the asshole, and grinds down again. Danny closes his eyes and digs his fingers deeper into the muscles of Stiles' lower back, bringing Stiles down to him as he thrusts up. Stiles' mouth falls open, and his hips stutter before he falls back into the slow, grinding rhythm.

Danny's completely hard now, but he's still exhausted. He needs more, something to bring them off before they fall asleep on each other halfway through. He slips his hand lower, teasing along the cleft of Stiles' ass.

That brings Stiles back to himself, and he jerks, panting, staring down into Danny's eyes. "Can I—" He gulps in air and tries again. "I need—" Danny watches, fascinated, as Stiles' eyes flick back and forth, considering and rejecting options in his sexual rolodex. He sighs, defeated, and rests his forehead against Danny's clavicle. "I want to be inside you. Fingers, anything, just—"

" _Yes,_ " Danny breathes fervently, pushing himself up enough to capture Stiles' mouth in a suddenly frenzied kiss. _God,_ those fingers. He _dreams_ of those fingers, even after having the real thing at his disposal in waking hours for the last four years.

Stiles leans over to root in the nightstand for lube, but Danny shoves at his hips until he slides all the way off. Danny strips out of his boxers and drops them onto the floor next to the bed. When Stiles comes back, it's skin against skin, and they both have to stop, take a moment to adjust to the smooth heat of each other. They move against each other, unhurried, while Stiles warms the lube in his hand. Arousal coils slow and pleased, cat-like, low in Danny's belly, and he stretches into it, stealing slow kisses and making low humming noises.

" _God_ ," Stiles mutters, halfway to wrecked already. He leans down and kisses Danny again, deep and slow. "Roll."

Danny stretches, rolling Stiles off of him as he goes onto his side, leg slightly crooked. Stiles slithers down the bed behind him, and Danny lifts up enough for Stiles to slide his other arm under Danny's torso. It'll be weird, and Stiles' arm will probably fall asleep, but Stiles gets like this sometimes, and he just needs to _surround_ Danny, keep him close.

While he still has feeling in his arm, Stiles uses it to _devastating_ effect, rubbing gentle circles around Danny's nipples, interspersed with gentle tugs and squeezes. Danny arches into his hand, breath catching with every flick and pinch.

Stiles' finger, slick with warmed-up lube, teases at Danny's for only a moment before pressing in. Stiles is a _master_ at this, never hesitant or rough, just one slick slide inside and an _unerring_ aim for Danny's prostate. Danny keens and jerks as a shower of pleasure washes over him, and then the finger retreats, and Danny feels Stiles' pleased grin curl against his shoulder. God, but he loves this jerk so much. "Come on, smartass," he says, and his voice is low and breathy as his body throbs with want, "another."

Stiles complies without protest, two fingers twisting and curling in Danny's ass, his other hand still moving relentlessly between Danny's nipples. For a second, Danny's body clenches indecisively, not sure which sensation to chase. Then Stiles bites down on his shoulder at the same time he pinches Danny's left nipple _and_ presses Danny's prostate, and Danny relaxes, finding the rhythm that gives him the best of both. The smell of sex in the air intoxicates him, pulls him further into pleasure.

"Yeah," Stiles mutters, punctuating the sound with a firm press of three long fingers. Danny shivers against the burn and sighs when it turns into fullness and heat that starts to melt his brain. He fumbles his own hand up to clutch at Stiles'. "Shit, yeah," Stiles says. "Christ, you feel good, Danny."

"Oh, god, Stiles," he gasp, thrusting back harder, impaling himself on Stiles' fingers. Stiles' cock rubs against the top of his ass, and his own rests hard and weeping against his stomach. He keeps his hands away from it, not ready for this to be over, not _ever_ ready for this feeling to be over.

Stiles does this twisting thing with his wrist that Danny has _never_ been able to figure out, and everything sharpens. " _Stiles_!" Danny yelps. Sweat beads at his temples and collects in the small of his back. Stiles's hand inside him speeds up, while his hand on Danny's chest falters, mostly just rubbing circles against Danny's nipples. Danny's too far gone to care; his words have turned into guttural noises of approval and half-managed pleas of "Yes," and "More," and " _Stiles_ ," again and again and again. Everything is coiling tight inside him, Stiles' damp breath against his neck, Stiles' tongue licking along the shell of his ear, the wide muscled plane of Stiles' chest pressed against his back, the slick slide of Stiles' cock, wet with precome, along the cleft of Danny's ass just above where his fingers disappear inside. It's a symphony of sensation, building in a dizzying crescendo toward a shattering climax.

"Come on, Danny," Stiles pants into his ear, a hint of a desperate whine in his tone. "Touch yourself. Touch your gorgeous dick so I can see."

" _Fuck_." Danny drops his head back onto Stiles' shoulder and grips his cock, stroking in a desperate counterpoint to Stiles' motions, but keeping just shy of Stiles' pace, because he's not _ready_ to come.

Harder and faster they move, always just off-pace from each other, keeping each other on edge but rushing toward the precipice all the same. Stiles' fingers are finding Danny's prostate on every damned stroke. The hand on his nipples, the hand on his cock, the cock against his ass—no, it's too much, Danny can't— _"Stiles!"_ he grunts and then comes in a rush, the dizzying tide of it carrying him away.

Stiles' fingers keep moving, relentless and desperate, and Danny grinds back harder, trapping Stiles' cock between their bodies and increasing his friction. Stiles thrusts again, again, _again,_ slick-hot-smooth against Danny's ass, and then he makes a garbled sound that might have been meant to be words and comes hot and hard against Danny's ass.

They lay twined and panting, returning to themselves. Stiles makes no move to remove his fingers from Danny's ass, and any other time, Danny would encourage him to leave them there, to stay inside of Danny until he was ready to go again. But it's—Christ, he doesn't want to know what time it is, so he angles his hips away. Stiles takes the hint and pulls his fingers out slowly. Danny pouts at the empty feeling but grins when Stiles gets out of bed and comes back with a warm washcloth without Danny having to ask.

Once they've cleaned up, Stiles folds himself around Danny and rests his head briefly on Danny's shoulder. "Why do I get the feeling," he asks wearily, "that our year of quiet is about to get shattered?"

"I have the same feeling," Danny says, stroking his fingers over Stiles' where they rest on his chest.

"Motherfucking werewolves," Stiles says, half-asleep.

Danny snorts. "I hear that."

* * *

Stiles had been demon-certified darkness-free for 48 hours when the door to his hospital room burst open and the True Alpha of Beacon Hills literally fell through it.

Scott looked at Stiles with his heart in his eyes. They stared at each other for a long, tense moment while Stiles' heart thundered in his throat. Then Scott said, with the sincerity that only 15 years of friendship could build, "Dude."

Tears stung Stiles' eyelids as his insides unclenched a fraction further, letting light and heat into another dark, cold corner. He nodded. "Dude."

Scott crossed the room at barely contained velocity, flinging himself at Stiles with a speed and strength that should never be inflicted on anyone in a hospital bed. Stiles "oomphed" when Scott's head landed on his midriff, his hand coming up to stroke Scott's hair. Scott took a big, wolfy sniff at Stiles and then relaxed, dropping to his knees at the bedside. "Dude," he said again.

"Oh my god!" Lydia, camped out in a chair beside Stiles' bed, leapt to her feet. "I'm getting out of here before I die from second-hand testosterone poisoning. Danny, do you need anything?"

From his precarious perch behind Stiles on the bed, Danny smiled ruefully. "Better life choices?"

"Oh, hush." Stiles poked Danny's arm. He got it. He did. His relationship with Scott had been battered beyond recognition. They hadn't seen each other in a month, and their last meeting ended in a fight so violent Yogi had cowered under Danny's desk for hours after. Danny has probably expected reconciliation to be a long, slow, painful process full of stilted apologies and awkward conversations about feelings.

But this was _Scott_. Few important events in Stiles' life had happened without Scott beside him, and vice versa. Fifteen years in, a friendship like that didn't need much by way of words, because they each knew what the other would say and could forgive him for it anyway.

Scott popped to his feet and did something with his eyebrows that made Stiles laugh and move over, shoving at Danny's arm to make him shift.

"Oh, no," Danny protested, bracing against the rail at his back and refusing to move. "We will break this bed."

"We will not!" Stiles insisted.

"Stiles, I don't know its weight limit, but I'm guessing it's not rated for two adult human males and an alpha werewolf."

"We'll buy a new one." Stiles lowered his voice and leaned in close to Danny's ear. "I hear we're kinda loaded." On his other side, Scott snorted.

"No," Danny said firmly.

Stiles paused, considering. He took a breath and turned himself to more fully face Danny. He turned his sad eyes to 11 and batted his lashes. "Danny, beloved, ocean to my shore, wine to my vessel—"

"Seriously, what?" Danny demanded, looking three seconds from uncontrolled laughter.

"All right, buddy, look. Ya got two options. One." Stiles held his middle finger in front of Danny's face, and Danny started laughing so hard the bed vibrated beneath them. Undeterred in the face of victory, Stiles continued, "You can let our alpha snuggle us, which gets us, you know, much-needed pack bonding, and trust the wonders of modern technology to keep our butts off the floor. Two—" He added his index finger, and Scott snickered when Danny nipped Stiles' fingertips, causing Stiles to gasp. "No fair, assface, you know I haven't fully felt that shit in like a year. Two, if you don't trust the weight, take a chair and leave the bed to Scotty and me."

Danny stared. "Seriously, Stiles?"

"Dude," Scott hissed, "don't kick Danny out of bed."

Stiles looked between the two of them, stricken. "Bad?" he asked, voice small and uncertain.

Here was the thing: the people Stiles had kissed with romantic intent numbered four. The people he'd been in a serious relationship with numbered one. Add in the fact that that relationship had started and so far been carried out in the grip of the Nemeton's numbing darkness, and Stiles didn't exactly have the blueprint for healthy partnerships.

But everything had felt right, so far. Since he regained consciousness, he'd felt everything sharply, and everything he'd felt for Danny had been _good_. But maybe he'd been wrong.

Danny studied him. Stiles felt raw and exposed, and for the first time he missed the muting haze of the darkness. Then Danny said, "No, you're right. I'm here all the time, pretty much. You two need this more." Easy as that, Danny started maneuvering off the bed. Stiles panicked and grabbed his arm, maybe too hard, and reeled him back, kissing him frantically. Danny gave a startled "mmph" and then engaged with the kiss, running his hand up Stiles' arm to rest on the side of his neck, nipping at Stiles' lower lip before pulling back, dazed. "What was that for?"

"I don't deserve you, do I?" Stiles asked.

Danny's hand tightened on his neck, a grounding touch. "Yes, you do," he said firmly.

"All right," Stiles said. His chest felt tight, and everything seemed off, like he was looking through the wrong end of a telescope, but he trusted Danny to say what he was feeling, what he needed from Stiles. He could let that be enough for now.

Stiles scooted over so Scott could fit onto the bed behind him. He was in no fit medical condition to be anyone's big spoon. But instead of climbing on right away, Scott came around the bed and looked Danny in the eye, face serious. "Danny, I owe you an apology for the other night."

Stiles barely remembered the other night, he'd been sunk so low, but he vaguely recalled Scott having been at the house, and...rain?

Danny widened his stance slightly but kept his hands at his side, leaving his body language more open. "Okay."

"I didn't understand. I didn't see you as often as I should have, so I didn't realize how bad things had gotten or how hard you were fighting to fix it." He spoke carefully, as though his words had been pre-chosen, but confidently, as though he believed them implicitly. "But I should've trusted you." He chuckled ruefully. "I guess I didn't want to admit that anyone knows Stiles better than I do. But I promise that from now on, if Stiles isn't able to make decisions for himself, I'll defer to you." Scott looked at Stiles. "And vice versa."

Well, damn. Look at Scotty pulling up his big-boy pants. Tension leached out of Stiles at the possibility that Scott and Danny weren't going to keep fighting about him.

"Thanks, Scott. And I'm sorry I took my frustration out on you. You were respecting Stiles' request for space; it wasn't fair for me to get mad at you for not knowing what was going on." He paused and looked at Stiles for a second. "I'll keep you informed from now on. Our isolation hurt everyone."

How much had Stiles missed? He _remembered_ all of this: his demand that Scott butt out of his life (tactfully reinterpreted by Danny as a "request for space"); the insinuation that Danny didn't know Stiles like Scott did; Scott's decreasing awareness of their situation and Danny's increasing tendency to cancel get-togethers with the Beacon Hills pack. But it seemed now like he'd missed entire currents of emotional subtext. He exhaled slowly. Maybe disaster had been averted more narrowly than he'd realized.

"Totally," Scott was saying. "And, listen. I know I've been a shit alpha." Loyalty made Stiles want to object. Reality wouldn't let him. "It's not like the powers came with a manual or anything. But, uh, Kira's mom's been super-helpful, and Alpha McCoy is, seriously, a life-saver. I think I know how to do it now. And I want—" He swallowed. "I want to try again. For real. A real pack."

Stiles' skin tingled. A real pack. Like they'd been promised since Scott was turned. He could barely let himself believe in it.

"Who?" Danny asked. Thank god someone could be practical.

"The three of us," Scott said. "Allison, Isaac, Kira. Lydia if she's willing. My mom and Stiles' dad, if they're interested. I want an alliance with the Argents and a treaty with the Frank-McCoys and a whatever-you-call-it with Deaton and Morell. I want to do it right this time."

Stiles couldn't be considered and practical in the face of an offer like that. "God, yes," he breathed, "I want that, too."

Scott grinned, pleased. "Danny?"

Stiles could read Danny's expression, which was a miracle on its own. Danny wanted it, too, wanted it desperately, but he was cautious. "There has to be power-sharing," he said. "You may be the alpha, but I won't bend to a dictator. I can't accept Allison or Isaac as your second. Let Allison handle the Argents; give the Frank-McCoys to Isaac; and let Stiles and me deal with the Druids. In-person meetings once a month; Skype in between."

Stiles sucked in a breath. Danny was giving orders to an alpha— _and the alpha was listening_. Stiles was so turned on it hurt.

Scott nodded. "That's a lot like what I was planning," he said. He gave Danny a long, thoughtful look that made Stiles nervous. "Anything else?"

"Not for now."

Stiles maybe made a horny seal noise, which he covered by loudly declaring, "Hey, assholes, I feel a distinct lack of cuddling over here!"

Scott and Danny exchanged knowing eye rolls. Danny sat in the bedside chair while Scott moved back around the bed and crawled into the space Stiles left for him. He took a freakishly long time to settle, and Stiles elbowed him in the chest. "Dude, you share a bed with two people. How do you suck at this?"

"Two people who aren't hooked up to all this medical equipment, shut up," Scott grumbled, and Stiles laughed.

As soon as Scott settled, hot and comforting against his back, Stiles stretched his hand toward Danny. Stiles felt comfortably weighted down by the body at his back, the fingers wrapped around his, and the lure of sleep. _A real pack_ , he thought. Real...everything.

* * *

Danny's body is a traitor. It never believes him when he reminds it that, despite everything they've been through, he's a 20-year-old college student who's allowed to oversleep on weekends. He wakes at 9:00, just shy of five hours after falling asleep.

He lies still, eyes closed, trying to recapture sleep, but after ten minutes he concedes defeat and opens his eyes.

Stiles rolled away in the night and lies splayed across his side of the bed like a melodramatic jellyfish. Yogi's dog bed is empty, and the door to the room stands ajar.

Danny stands, runs some stretches, and pulls on jogging clothes. Stiles flops onto his stomach, his hand searching Danny's empty side of the bed. He pouts and makes an unintelligible noise that could be Danny's name before falling into deeper sleep. It's absurdly endearing and makes Danny want to climb back into bed and let Stiles curl around him while he does his homework, but two years of living together has taught them that when Danny wakes up first, he has about a half-hour window to get out of the bed before his restlessness wakes Stiles, too. Plus, Danny _needs_ the run. He has a lot of anger to burn off.

Yogi lies curled up outside Derek's room. "Yogi, come," Danny calls as he heads for the kitchen, speaking softly in deference to sensitive, hung-over werewolf hearing. He starts coffee, slips on his shoes, attaches Yogi to her leash and harness, and they're off.

It's later than he'd normally be starting his run but early for a weekend morning. Around him, Beacon Hills is waking up. He breathes the air at its purest—as pure as air can be anymore—hears birds and insects instead of cars and AC motors. His magic is waking up, too; it rolls beneath his skin like waves, trickles down his spine like raindrops. For a moment, he feels connected to everything.

Danny nods at everyone he passes, though once he's out of their neighborhood he doesn't know many people. Early risers share a kinship. Yogi's presence at his side reassures him, anchors him to mundanity and makes no demands of him. By the time they get back to the condo, his anger is mostly under control.

When he opens the front door, he's greeted by an ass. It's not bad, as asses go, but it's not the one he's partial to. "Morning, Scott."

His shoelace seen to, Scott pops up and turns around, smile wide and sunny. "Hey, Danny! Didn't mean to startle you." Danny hates that he can't hide that from Scott.

"I didn't expect you up." Danny closes the door and leans against it.

"Yeah, I gotta—hey, Yogi!" Yogi has, with her usual dignity and decorum, flung herself at Scott, front paws scrabbling against his broad chest, wet nose poking over and over at his cheek. Scott makes a half-hearted effort to push her away.

"Yogi, down," Danny says, and she drops to all fours, though she continues to lean heavily against Scott's legs and stare adoringly up at him.

"Anyway," Scott says, leaning down to scratch between Yogi's ears, "Allison's doing this scary spa thing with Kira and Lydia, and Isaac picked up an extra shift. I've gotta get home and let Luke and Leia out before they destroy the living room." Isaac named the dogs. Scott still hasn't seen _Star Wars_. Danny's pretty sure he's avoiding them on purpose because it distresses Stiles. "Then I'll fall back in bed and sleep 'til noon."

"Okay. You need anything before you go?" Danny doesn't know what Scott and Stiles did last night, but their bro-dates usually involve drinking too much and forgetting to eat. He _does not_ want to face Allison and Isaac if he sends Scott home hung-over and unfed.

"Nah, I'm good," Scott says. He raises the thermos in his hand. "I ate a muffin and stole your coffee."

Danny lets him keep his moment of imagined stealth, not mentioning that he makes a triple pot on mornings Scott's stayed over, because he and Stiles go through enough coffee to keep the Brazilian economy afloat.

"Listen, man, about Derek..."

Danny spreads his hands. "He showed up around two this morning. I think he expected Stiles. He said someone was following him—more than one, actually, said 'them'—and passed out. I cleaned him up as best I could and dumped him into a bed."

"Thanks for doing that. Was he healing?"

"Yeah, but—" Danny frowns. "Slowly. A lot slower than I expected. It wasn't—" He shakes his head. "They didn't look like werewolf claw marks."

Scott slugs his coffee and pushes his other hand through his shaggy hair. "Okay. Keep us updated. If the pack needs in on it, we'll call a meeting for tomorrow."

Danny hasn't considered the possibility of Derek staying, well, past today, honestly. He's got a lot of feelings about that, few of them nice. "Right," he says and pushes away from the door. "I will. Give our love to everybody."

Scott claps Danny's shoulder. "Yeah, thanks. You're the best, man." He eases around Danny toward the door.

"Oh!" Danny puts his hand out. "What about you? You were out pretty late last night."

"Oh, yeah!" Scott says, grinning wide. "Some big-shot from the athletic department recognized Stiles and got us into a sweet box. Then we hung out with a bunch of the players afterward. It was sick. Ooh, also—"Scott's face does a twist that makes him look like a naughty puppy—"Stiles got drunk and handsy—"

"With the hockey players?" Danny's voice spikes like a scandalized Victorian maiden's, and he scowls. Though Stiles is college-aged himself, as a pro athlete the public holds him to a different standard of behavior, and Danny can imagine how the headlines will read if he's been behaving inappropriately toward college hockey players.

Scott laughs. "No, no, with me. So if the tabloids start again—"

"About the torrid affair you two are having?"

"Yeah." They chuckle. It would hardly be new.

"Got it." Danny hip-checks Scott, which probably hurts Danny way more than it hurts Scott. "You and I should let a pap catch us doing something incriminating. Then it could be a torrid threeway."

Scott laughs loudly and then slaps his hand over his mouth. "Alli would frame that and hang it in the living room." Grinning and shaking his head, he opens the door. Danny holds Yogi's collar so she doesn't make a break for it. "All right, man, later."

Once Scott's gone, Danny slips back into the master suite for a shower. He dresses without raising so much as a snuffle from Stiles and returns to the kitchen, barefoot and damp. He pours himself coffee and picks a coconut-key lime muffin out of the hot pink box on the counter. Settling on a stool, he cracks open his homework and tries to convince Yogi she's not interested in his muffin. He fails at both tasks. Because now that he's rested and his endorphin high has worn off, he can't stop thinking about Derek Hale being in his guest room.

He worries for Stiles most of all. Stiles and Derek had a chance at something, and Derek's abrupt departure—fleeing Beacon Hills in the night without a word—cut Stiles deeply, especially as he struggled against the new darkness around his heart. Stiles' grudges from that time vanished when the tristivori ate the darkness, but it might not be easy to be around Derek without remembering that painful time in his life.

He worries for the pack. They're stable now. The Nemeton once again _gives_ life, instead of malevolently drawing in supernatural baddies. They battle the occasional foe, but no one's life has truly been in danger for over a year. If Derek intends to join the Beacon Hills pack, how will that effect their hard-won dynamic?

He refuses to worry for himself. If he starts down that road, he might never come back. He shoves it down with the other things he refuses to worry about. That space is getting full. He doesn't want to think about that, either.

This is not getting his schoolwork done.

The guest room door opens. A sensation like warm rain builds around a tattoo on Danny's left forearm. He glances at it; it glows silver, so Derek has neutral intentions toward him, for now. Quiet footsteps pad toward him and pause beside the tall, open-backed cabinet that separates living room from kitchen. "You can come in, Derek," Danny says. Derek moves into the entryway. "There's coffee and muffins."

Derek fiddles with coffee and a banana-caramel muffin. Then he leans his hip against the counter, crosses his arms, and looks between Danny and Yogi, who's come to stand between her human and the interloper. "I thought I might've dreamed you," Derek says.

Danny raises an eyebrow. "Me or the dog?"

One of Derek's shoulders lifts. He keeps his gaze on Yogi, seeming glad of an excuse not to look at Danny. "Hi," he says. Yogi yawns.

"She'll warm up to you."

"Ibizan, right?" Derek asks. "My aunt had a kennel. Boarded a couple Ibizans sometimes. I remember they were standoffish around strangers." He crouches and puts out his hand. "Does she..."

"Yogi, shake," Danny commands. Yogi creeps forward and places a paw in Derek's hand. Danny looks down in time to see a flash of blue and Yogi's supremely unimpressed face in response. Danny snorts. "Good luck. Even Scott doesn't get anywhere with that. She acknowledges a superior predator, but she won't submit."

Derek stands. "Definitely Stiles' dog."

If Yogi recognizes anyone as her alpha, it's Danny, but he doesn't care to explain that to Derek. Danny's involvement with the supernatural started after Derek left Beacon Hills. As far as he knows, Danny's just that gay hacker the alphas tried to poison with mistletoe that one time. Danny isn't interested in bragging; if Derek sticks around, he'll see soon enough what Danny's worth to the pack.

"I can't believe Stiles named his dog Yogi."

"You haven't been living under a rock for four years," he says. "Stiles is on his way to becoming the greatest catcher in twenty years. Of course we named the dog Yogi." Derek picks around the edges of his muffin and looks, if Danny had to put a name to it, chagrined. Danny bounces the eraser end of his pencil on the countertop. "I'm guessing you didn't mean Yogi." Derek looks up, then away. "That you dreamed up."

Still glaring a hole into his muffin, and now scratching his beard as well, Derek mutters, "I had—Cora gave me this address. For Stiles. I didn't realize you—" He snaps his mouth shut.

"Live here, too?" Danny says. "Look, you've been gone a long time. A lot's changed."

"For me, too," Derek says quietly.

Danny leans forward and props his elbows on the counter. "Unknown foes attack you; you stagger to Stiles' door and pass out—seems like old times, from what I've been told."

Derek gives him a look that's almost a sneer. "They weren't—"

Danny holds up a hand. "Save it for when Stiles is awake. Don't want to go through it twice."

Derek nods. They sit. In silence. Awkwardly.

"This muffin is ridiculous," Derek mutters, and a dam bursts inside Danny. He sniggers, then devolves into full-blown laughter. Derek looks startled, and then a grin breaks over his face.

"They're tradition," Danny says when he gets his voice back. "Whenever Stiles and Scott have bro-dates, they pick up a dozen muffins from Georgie's. No matter what they plan, the night ends with drunken carousing, and they're never in any shape to cook the next morning."

The smile drops from Derek's face. "Scott," he says. "I thought I'd dreamed him, too."

Danny reaches down to pat Yogi where she's leaning against his leg. "He's doing well," he says. "We're all doing well, for once. I can catch you up if—"

"No," Derek cuts him off quickly. "No, thank you. Not yet. It's...I'm—" He stares accusingly at his muffin. Danny waits. "Who usually uses the room I slept in?"

"There's no 'usually' here. It's not like the house in San Mateo, where everyone has their own room. People just crash here sometimes, when they need to, wherever there's space."

Derek lets this sink in and then asks, "Who used it most recently? The scent seemed familiar, but I couldn't..." He looks away, embarrassed.

 _If you'd stayed,_ Danny thinks, _you would know._ But he says only, "John and Melissa, I think."

Derek's eyebrow quirks. "John _and_ Melissa?"

"They started—well. They _told_ everyone they'd started dating a year ago. Lydia thinks it's been longer."

"Lydia," Derek says. He rubs his hand over his face. "Jesus." Danny could say a lot of things to that, but he holds his tongue. He watches, fascinated, as Derek literally shakes off whatever he's been thinking and returns to the here and now. He takes a sip of coffee and eyes the books and papers spread across the table. "What are you studying?"

"This? Access control matrices. Generally, computer science and developmental psych double major with a criminal justice minor."

Derek stares at him. "What."

Danny grabs his phone, where he's stored links to relevant information in case it comes up in conversation (it always comes up in conversation, if you talk to him long enough). He shows Derek the article that first piqued his interest, the new study on teen hacker psychology and failed government efforts to divert hackers' energy and attention elsewhere. He explains the pilot program he's setting up with the SFPD to hire kids they bust for hacking to help solve other crimes with digital footprints.

Once the initial awkwardness fades, Derek proves surprisingly easy to talk to. He's engaged but quiet, letting Danny speak uninterrupted apart from two or three clarifying questions and appropriate "I'm listening" sounds. It surprises Danny—until he remembers that Stiles is his baseline normal for conversations. Explaining this to him had taken nearly an hour, because Stiles had pelted him with challenging questions, buried him under "supplemental reading," and once attempted to detour him into the complete history of computer crime (which he claimed started with Dutch workers throwing wooden shoes into automated looms in the 1400s). Explaining it to Derek, comprehensibly and coherently, takes twenty minutes. Danny will admit to gloating internally at the obvious increase in respect on Derek's face when they're done.

"Christ, I'm conflicted."

Danny and Derek whirl to look at Stiles, who leans against the cabinet, watching them with bloodshot eyes. "My head is _so_ pissed at you, Derek, but my dick's like, two seconds from proposing a threesome."

Danny rolls his eyes and reaches for Stiles' favorite mug. Derek turns bright red and glowers at Stiles. "You haven't grown up at all," he snarls.

"He has," Danny says. "He's just spent too much time with Scott. He needs a brain reset."

"I do not!" Stiles protests as he shuffles across the kitchen. Yogi clicks over and leans against his leg until he acknowledges her presence with a scritch between the ears, then she retreats to her usual place at Danny's feet.

Danny holds out Stiles' mug, now filled with coffee. "Stiles, I'm offering you an out. Reject it at your peril."

"I'm sorry, man, but this is, like, 67 percent of my sophomore year fantasies sitting at this counter.

"I could call Lydia," Danny teases. "Complete the set."

"I like my balls where they are, dude," Stiles shoots back. " _You_ like my balls where they are."

Danny tilts his face up, humming approvingly when Stiles kisses him. Stiles slumps against his side and gives a contented sigh when Danny slides an arm around his waist. From the corner of his eye, Danny sees Derek looking at them like he can't comprehend how anyone lives this way.

Stiles opens the muffin box. "Hey hey! Dark chocolate cherry espresso!" he crows, grabbing it in defiance of Danny and Derek's groans. "Scotty, you're the best." He takes a giant bite from the muffin and turns to Derek. "Fo, whe oobem?"

Derek stares at him, appalled. Danny smacks Stiles' arm. "Maybe you're making him regress," Danny tells Derek. "I swear to god he's an actual adult."

Stiles swallows and grins at Derek, teeth stained obnoxiously with dark chocolate. "Gotta remind you what you've been missing, dude."

"How did I ever stay away?" Derek's delivery is deadpan, but the joke lies heavy between them, a grim reminder that they'll eventually have to talk about the unpleasant shit. Derek clears his throat and looks away. "Sorry, I—sorry. New York, mostly." Danny is grudgingly impressed that Derek worked out what Stiles asked him. "Cora wanted to see the places Laura and I hung out. Then we just ...stayed."

"Story of your life, man," Stiles mutters, and Derek cants him a dark look.

"Six months ago, Cora got a call from the alpha of her old pack in Bolivia. Some idiot archaeologist accidentally triggered an ancient Aymara curse."

Stiles yells, "Fucking asshole!" and slams his fist onto the countertop. Derek jolts, but Danny just wipes up the drops of coffee that splashed over the rim of Stiles' mug. Stiles tracks the motion. "Too much?"

Danny see-saws his hand. "Little bit."

Stiles ducks his head. "Sorry." He looks at Derek. "Sometimes I have a hiccup."

Derek looks between them. He swallows before hesitantly continuing, "Five members of the pack had gotten so sick they were close to dying. Their emissary found a spell to counter the curse, and that spell got stronger the more pack members they could get for it. So we went back. I didn't have to go with her, but..." He trails off.

"Being away from her is hard," Danny says.

"I didn't like letting her out of my sight, at first," Derek admits with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Drove her insane."

"Her pack's okay now?" Stiles asks. He leans forward, resting his elbows on the counter, long fingers picking restlessly around the edge of his muffin.

"Seemed like it, when I left. Cora wanted to stay with them, and I...didn't. I mean, they were nice to me, but they weren't _my_ pack."

"Dude, do you _have_ a pack anymore?" Stiles is blunt as always, but it sounds like he's attempting to empathize with Derek. He and Danny were isolated from Scott's pack for long enough that they have some idea what Derek's going through.

"I don't—" Derek runs a finger down the handle of his mug and looks to be choosing his words with great care. "I didn't think I did. But when I thought about wanting one, I thought of Scott. His pack. I don't—" He takes a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm not sure how long I can stay. Beacon Hills is... _bad_ for me. But it's where I need to be for a while."

They stand in silence for a moment, digesting that. Stiles pats Derek's hand. "Of course, being you, you had to bring trouble with you while you were at it," he says.

Derek's shoulders sag. "They were—the things that were chasing me were like...furry, wet, yellow horses. Two of them. With spiked tails." He grimaces and lifts his hand to his chest. "That's what they got me with."

At Danny's side, Stiles goes still and pale, clutching the edge of the countertop until his knuckles turn white. Danny is a roiling mass of rage and dread. He doesn't want to deal with this shit again. They're escalating, and he doesn't appreciate being intimidated. And to involve external parties—which Derek is, now.

"Were they wearing any green?" Danny asks. He has to be sure of what they're dealing with.

Derek looks startled, but he nods right away. "Yeah, they had a...a thing. Here." He gestures around his head.

"It's called a _champron_ ," Stiles spits. "God _damn_ it, Derek, you brought fucking fuath to our door."

"They were chasing him, Stiles. What else could he have done?"

"Not brought fucking fuath to our door!"

"I lost them by the time I got to your building," Derek insists.

"You _think_ you did," Stiles snaps. "They don't give up easily."

"Okay, what are they?" Derek asks. "Do they work on their own, or does someone control them?"

"They're evil Celtic water spirits," Danny says. "No one controls them, but I'm guessing they're working for the Druidic High Order."

"Definitely evil?"

Stiles bitchfaces Derek. "Well, the name means 'hate,' so I'll go with, yeah, definitely evil."

Derek's face pales, and his mouth tightens. "What do they want with you?" he asks, voice strained.

"Me?" Stiles squeaks.

"Yeah, I—" Derek looks at Danny. "Didn't I say that?" When Danny forces down the bile in his throat and shakes his head no, Derek says, "Jesus, Stiles, I'm sorry. I don't know how they connected me to you, but you're the one they're after."

"But that doesn't make sense!" Stiles looks helplessly at Danny. Danny grips his hand. "Why would they—damn it!" Stiles jerks, slamming against the island. "That's right, isn't it? Please tell me I can be angry."

"Absolutely you can," Danny assures him. "But let's be sure we're angry about the right thing." He turns to Derek. "They're after Stiles? They mentioned him by name?"

"Well they—" Derek stops, tilts his head. "No," he says.

Danny nods. "What _exactly_ did they say?"

"They asked me where the Beacon Hills emissary was. I assumed—"

Danny holds up his hand to forestall both Derek's assumption and Stiles' pun about assumptions. "Now's a good time to be angry," he tells Stiles.

Stiles refills his coffee. "I've moved on to mind-numbing terror, thanks."

"Do you know why they're after you?" Derek asks.

Danny looks at Stiles, who slumps onto the stool between Danny and Derek and rests his cheek heavily on his fist. Yogi leans her head on Danny's foot. "All you, cutie," Stiles says.

"They're after me," Danny says and holds out his hand to Derek. "Danny Mahealani. Witch, hacker, and Beacon Hills pack emissary."

*

"If we're doing this," Scott said, looking around the table, "we're doing it right."

Everyone accepted the invitation, in the end, even Lydia, who'd waffled between being in and out of the supernatural scene since Jackson's funeral. They sat in the McCall living room, clutching mugs of tea or coffee. Bowls of mixed nuts and Reese's Pieces lined the coffee table. Except Lydia, who never left her house looking less than perfect, and Stiles' dad, who hadn't had time to change out of his uniform, they wore comfortable, everyday clothes. Kira was wearing fuzzy fox slippers, for god's sake. They looked less like a group of supernatural and associated beings planning the future of Beacon Hills than like a book club or D&D group.

Two werewolves. A kitsune. A hunter. A banshee. A witch and a spark. Two humans. Probably one of the strangest packs ever. But something about longing, about _belonging_ , drew them together time and again, no matter how often it proved a disastrous instinct.

"I'm not going to be a traditional alpha," Scott admitted. "I don't know how."

"That's okay," Isaac said. "It's not like any of us _really_ know what that's like."

"Yeah. But Alpha McCoy's been super-helpful. And some of you talked about, um, power balance. And that totally makes sense to me. So." He took a slow, deliberate breath and looked at Kira. "Kira, will you serve as my second in command?"

Kira flashed a quick, bright grin and a swirl of tails. "Alpha McCall, I would be honored."

"Awesome." Dad might or might not have snorted. "But we're not the only ones in the territory, right?" He turned slightly to his right. "Allison, will you redo our alliance with your family and our agreements with other hunters?"

Allison nodded regally. "Alpha McCall, _je serais honoré_."

"Showoff," Stiles muttered.

Scott tilted his head. "You said the same thing Kira said, right? Only on French, 'cause it sounds cooler." Now Dad definitely snorted, and Melissa, too.

"And we have to get along with the other packs around us, or at least keep them from trying to take over our territory. Isaac, will you renew the treaty with the four adjacent packs and check out who else is interested in dealing with us?"

Isaac looked so excited Stiles expected an actual tail to start wagging. "Alpha McCall, I would be honored." He raised his fist, and Scott bumped it. Stiles started to laugh—and then froze.

Something was happening. Looking around, he knew everyone could feel it, even if only he and Danny could identify it now. In a few minutes, they would all know.

Magic. The base magic that tied a pack together. It unfurled like new growth in spring, curling around and between each of them, connecting them to their taproot. To Scott. Stiles' heart soared. They would be stronger than they had dared imagine.

"Okay, cool, so, one more thing." Scott rubbed his palms on his jeans. "This is, like, really unusual, because traditionally I'm supposed to be the only one who knows. But I don't get that, and I think it'll be better if we all know? Um, right, let me—" Scott turned to fully face Danny. Stiles leaned forward. He'd been waiting all night for this moment. "Danny, you fought a demon in the Limn and opened a rain cloud on my head. If you don't agree to be our emissary, I'm gonna cry."

Stiles' whole being flooded with love and pride for Danny and Scott. Dimly he registered Danny speak the formal words of acceptance, but he barely heard them over the triumphant pounding of his pulse in his ears. He looked around. "Oh my god, Lydia," he cackled, "you should see the look on your face!"

Lydia looked gobsmacked, but she recovered fast. She looked from Danny to Scott to Stiles. "Yes," she said, "that's perfect."

"Wait a second." Dad sat forward on his cushion. "I thought Stiles—"

"Dad, no," Stiles said quickly. "Scott and I talked about this. This is, no question, the best thing for the pack."

"How?" Melissa demanded. Stiles felt damned honored to have the parents defending him.

"Okay, what three things does an emissary needs?" Stiles leaned forward and ticked them off on his fingers. "Magic. The ability to do things that suck, even if it hurts the pack, in the name of balance. The respect of the alpha."

"Scott respects you, Stiles," Melissa insisted.

"Yeah, totally!" Stiles said enthusiastically. "I mean, Scott the dude totally respects Stiles the dude. But Scott the alpha would have a hard time taking strategy advice from Stiles the dude he's known since we were eating boogers and tying pillowcases to our necks to play Superman. Plus, Danny does _way_ better at the balance shit." From the corner of his eye, Stiles caught Danny's smile, half-embarrassed, half-pleased. God, he seriously had the best boyfriend.

"But he's not a Druid," Dad said.

"That doesn't matter," Lydia said. "The Druids have cornered the market on the emissary role, but no rule, written, magical, or otherwise, says it _has to_ be that way." She raised an eyebrow at Dad, who considered for a minute and then nodded. Lydia turned to Scott. "And the rest of us?"

Scott shrugged. "Keep doing what you do, I guess." He looked at Dad and Melissa. "Sheriff, keep the rest of the department from figuring us out. Mom, keep stitching us up. Stiles and Lydia, keep being the smart ones."

Stiles coughed, but Lydia shook her head. "You missed something," she said. Scott cocked his head and motioned for her to continue. "I compiled some statistics." She handed Scott a piece of paper; Stiles couldn't read it, but it made Scott wince. "This chart shows our collective arrests, hospital visits, and missed school days, back to when Scott was bitten." Now everyone winced. "We don't have the best reputation in this town." Brightly, she continued, "Fortunately, I am excellent at spin. Ask Stiles. I made him appear lovable to baseball fans when he was a hollow emotional void, and I spun the miraculous recovery of his emotional capacity." Adopting the same solemn mien Scott had used with the others, she said, "Alpha McCall, I volunteer as PR manager of this pack."

"Whoa, hey!" Stiles said. Confused looks were being exchanged around the room. "What are—I mean, you can't call press conferences to say we get in trouble because we're off fighting supernatural menaces."

The look Lydia turned on Stiles dripped disdain and aggravation. "I know how to work unofficial channels, Stiles. Or do you think you've stayed with the Giants for the past three years because of your winning personality?"

Stiles' mouth dropped open, and for a minute it was equal odds whether it would produce words or bile. "I—I thought it was because of my contract," he said, voice thick.

Lydia leaned over several people and put her hand over his. "Mostly it was because team management's not stupid," she said. "They'd be colossal idiots to let you go. But, Stiles, you have to know you weren't...the most popular guy with the other players. Before."

Scott shot Stiles a look—an unspoken consultation in his eyes. Stiles dropped his gaze to the floor. Danny's fingers slipped into his, and he clutched them, pathetically grateful. "Lydia," Scott said sincerely, "I am honored to accept." Lydia smiled serenely. Scott looked around and said, "That leaves the name. Beacon Hills has been Hale territory for six generations. That's strong magic. Since Isaac and I were turned by Hales, we have the right to keep using the name."

"It feels weird without any Hales in the pack," Allison said.

"I know it's boring," Scott said, "but I think it'd be best if we just call ourselves the Beacon Hills pack. I mean, that's what's important, right? Not that you belong to me—which is ridiculous, right, because you don't belong to me—but that we belong to this place."

And they did. Stiles and Danny knew that from their magical training, and he suspected the wolves could feel it, but for Scott to speak it aloud gave it a weight and power that grounded the pack in an instant.

"The Beacon Hills pack," Kira said, testing it. The instant she said it, Stiles felt the pack bond settle into his bones with an electric snap. The Beacon Hills pack had arrived.

* * *

"Derek."

"Shut up, Stiles."

"Dereeeeek, come on."

"Stiles, _shut up_!"

Stiles holds his silence for 15 seconds before whining, "For real, man, what are they saying?"

"I don't know!" Derek snaps. "I promised Danny I wouldn't listen in."

"Oh, right. Like I believed you when you said that." Derek lifts his eyebrows. Damn, Stiles had forgotten how much Derek can say with those eyebrows. "Wait, seriously? Whatever. Tell me anyway."

The tips of Derek's ears turn pink. "I can't," he says. "Danny's blocking me."

Stiles laughs so hard he slumps against the Jeep's steering wheel. "Guess he didn't believe you, either."

The corner of Derek's lips twitch. "Or he knows you well enough to expect you'd try to pester it out of me."

Stiles wipes his eyes and sits upright. "Can't actually argue with that."

Derek turns his attention back to the yard. Luke and Leia chase Yogi through the tall native grasses of the lawn, yipping delightedly. "What am I even looking at?" Derek asks.

"It's the best, right?" Stiles says. "Yogi could squash them by stepping wrong, but they are absolutely the boss of her, and she couldn't be happier."

"What are they?"

"You worked in a kennel. What do they look like?"

Derek purses his lips in distaste. "Like someone shrank a Doberman and trapped it in a dust mop."

Stiles starts laughing again, and he side-eyes Derek. "Dude. What happened to you?"

"Therapy," Derek says. Absently, as though unaware he's saying it, he adds, "And don't call me dude."

Stiles tilts his chin at the yard and says, "Shih Tzu-Min Pin mix. Funny story, their parents; star-crossed canine lovers shit." They sit in silence for a minute and then Stiles pokes Derek's ribcage with his elbow. "What about you?"

"Definitely not a Shih Tzu-Min Pin mix."

"Hah hah, asshole. You seeing anyone?"

Derek turns in the passenger seat to glare at him full-on. "You did not jump from two dogs' love lives to mine."

Stiles see-saws his hands. "Maybe a little."

Derek faces forward again. "No," he says. "There was someone. In New York. But then I went to Bolivia with Cora, and we couldn't..."

"Not so much with the long-distance thing?" Stiles asks.

Rubbing his hand over his face, Derek says, "I'm bad enough with communication at close range."

"Ain't that the truth," Stiles says. Over the years, his rage toward Derek has faded and been replaced by the strangest sense of protectiveness. He worries about Derek like a mother hen: does he sleep enough; does he eat well; does he have anyone to take care of him? With Cora back in Bolivia, Derek's alone again, with no one to get him through the bad nights. "I could find you someone."

Derek jolts. "That is such a bad idea I can't even—"

"No!" Stiles says, warming to the idea. "Come on; it'll be great. Let Yenta Stilinski take care of you."

"Stiles, I don't know if I'm staying long enough for that to be worth it."

Stiles turns in his seat and _glares._ "Gonna cut and run again, huh?"

Derek clenches his jaw and stares out the windshield. "I have a life in New York," he says, but it sounds weak to Stiles, more like an excuse than a statement of fact.

Stiles ignores it. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel and grimaces as he considers how few people he _knows_ anymore. _Everyone_ he knows through baseball would be a _terrible_ fit for Derek. The pack offers slim pickings, although—"Oh! Kira's single."

Derek frowns out the window, and Stiles would give anything to know what he sees when he looks at Beacon Hills now. "You mentioned her. The kitsune, right?"

"Yes!" Stiles says excitedly. "She's pack, so you know she's trustworthy, and you'd have plenty of opportunities to bond and shit. Also, she is wicked-hot with a katana."

"I don't know. Werewolves and kitsune don't—"

"Don't start," Stiles cuts him off. "She and Scott dated for over a year; don't try it."

"It's different for born wolves," Derek mutters, and Stiles definitely hasn't missed _that_ bullshit, but he lets it go.

"What about Parrish? He's my dad's best deputy. He's, uh, a phoenix, but he's got the bursting into flames thing, um, mostly under control. You'd be...safe. Safeish." You can't hope for much better than safeish in this town.

Derek fixes him with a panicked look that would have Stiles in stitches if the dude didn't look freaked out. "Jordan Parrish?"

"Yeah. Oh, cool. You know him?"

Derek snorts humorlessly. "Yeah. Pass."

Stiles' eyebrows dip down. "What? Is it the phoenix thing? Or did you swear off dudes?"

"In general, no. Ones who've dumped me before, yes."

"You and—" Stiles' eyes feel comically wide. "Your someone in New York." When Derek nods once, Stiles sinks against the seat, mind whirling. What the hell is wrong with Derek's luck? When a guy's best relationship ends in _getting_ _dumped_ _by a phoenix_ , it's time for that guy to rethink his dating strategy. "Do you ever wonder if somebody hexed you at some point?"

Derek huffs. "All the damned time."

The front door of the house opens. Danny and Scott stand side-by-side, illuminated from behind by the soft yellow hall lights. Stiles' breath catches in his throat. There they stand, two of the three most important men in his life, and for a second Stiles' entire being lean toward them, like a flower toward the sun. They grin at him, though something dark and guarded slides into Scott's expression as his gaze flickers to Derek. Danny raises a hand to beckon them inside, and Stiles turns to Derek with a quirked eyebrow. "You ready to see what the pack looks like?"

Derek swallows and shakes his head. "No," he says, halfway out of the Jeep.

Scott stands at the top of the steps to the front porch, arms crossed. He's in human form except for his eyes. Scott's been Stiles' best friend since they were barely out of diapers, so most days it's hard to think of him as intimidating. But right now he's pulling his alpha power to the fore, and Stiles feels sorry for Derek for having that much authority focused on him.

Derek keeps his spine straight and his stance relaxed, but he shoves his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and he lowers his eyes and tilts his head, baring his neck to Scott. "Alpha McCall," he says deferentially.

"Omega Hale," Scott replies, and Stiles shivers. This pack doesn't stand on ceremony, and the alienness of the ritual exchange stirs something dark and unpleasant in his gut.

So quietly Stiles would've missed it if he he'd been standing further away, Derek says, "Thank you for allowing me into your pack's territory."

Scott's down the stairs in a heartbeat. He grips Derek's biceps and presses his face into the crook of Derek's neck. "You are a _Hale_ ," he says fiercely, words muffled against Derek's skin. "This will _always_ be your territory, no matter who's alpha."

A sensation runs through Stiles like someone's poured a bucket of warm rainwater into him. His eyes snap up to Danny in time to see the blue-green glow fade from his eyes. He offers Stiles an apologetic smile for doing that without warning, but Stiles is too busy being dumbfounded to care. Danny's made Scott's promise manifest. He's tied Derek to Beacon Hills pack land in an irrevocable way that even Derek's Hale blood and status as former alpha hadn't. Given the stunned and grudgingly impressed look Derek gives Danny, he knows it. Hah! Take _that_ , guy-who-underestimated-Stiles'-man!

Scott's rolling with the magical undercurrents better than Stiles and Derek, because he ignores them in favor of saying, "This is your pack, too, if you want it. Say the word, and it's done."

"Would your emissary make it so?" Derek asks shakily.

"You and I would make it so," Scott says. "Wolf brothers, remember? Danny would...make it official, I guess."

Derek takes a deep, shuddering breath and detaches himself from Scott. "I—thank you, Scott. But I'm not ready for that."

Scott steps back. The red fades from his eyes, and he pulls his alpha authority back so he doesn't exert undue influence on Derek. "Come on," he says.

Scott bounds up the stairs, but Derek pauses at the bottom, looking up at Danny. Danny looks back with his lips quirked but his face otherwise unreadable, even to Stiles. "Emissary Mahealani," Derek greets him.

Stiles swallows a gasp. Usually, Danny goes off with Scott for these formalities, or by himself to deal with other emissaries. Stiles has never been around for this part, for someone looking at Danny with the respect and hint of fear he deserves and calling him by his title. His heart fills unbearably with love for Danny and gratitude for Derek giving him this.

Danny gives Derek a dimpled smile. "Omega Hale," he says, and a hundred things play in his tone, too complicated to tease out.

Derek's face scrunches up as he pulls words from a dusty corner of memory. "I acknowledge that I am a guest in this place. I wish no harm to you, your pack, or your territory."

Danny's smile widens, his eyes glow, and he says, with greater ease of practice, "Be welcome, journeyer. So long as your intentions remain true, you are under the protection of my magic, my pack, and my territory."

All these words sound strange and stilted. They turn people Stiles knows into ominous strangers, and he rocks from foot to foot, willing normalcy back into the situation. The glow fades from Danny's eyes, and he flashes a broad grin at Stiles. Tension begins to leach out of Stiles' shoulders.

"Okay, that's the boring stuff," Scott says, practically dancing in place. "Come on in; Kira made brownies." Scott and Danny call their respective dogs to heel, and Scott steps into the house.

Derek follows slowly, literally dragging his feet. Stiles stops his shuffle with a hand on his arm. "Derek. Hey." Derek looks back at him, the one-step difference reminding Stiles of when they first met and Derek had a few inches on him. "It's okay," he says. "I promise."

"I left. Without a word to anyone but Scott."

"Yeah, and that totally sucked," Stiles says, "and expect a ton of deeply scarring one-on-one conversations that are gonna be, no lie, Count Rugen levels of pain. And I can't stop Isaac from smelling disappointed and hurt, and no way can I stop Lydia from silently judging you. But I made Scott and Danny promise they wouldn't call you in 'til everyone agreed not to ambush you in front of everybody tonight. You're gonna meet the new people, relearn the old ones, and nobody's gonna give you grief for running away." When Derek's eyebrow goes up, he shrugs sheepishly. "Except that. And I'm done now, so, yay!"

For a few seconds that feel like forever, Derek stares at him. Stiles' heart hammers as they look at each other. The corner of Derek's lip twitches, and Stiles sags with relief. "Didn't expect a _Princess Bride_ reference."

Stiles' eyes bulge, and he waves his hands at Derek. "Seriously, dude? _That's_ what you got out of that?"

Derek shrugs and turns to climb the stairs. But Stiles sees the relaxed line of his shoulders and the confident lift of his feet and thinks, they'll be all right.

Danny's waiting for Stiles by the door. He scans Stiles' face and rests his hand against the side of Stiles' neck. Stiles leans into the touch. "How're you holding up?" Danny asks.

"Better," he says, the closest he'll come to admitting he was bad before. "You?"

Danny lowers his arm, twining his fingers with Stiles'. "It's going to be a long night," he says, the closest _he'll_ come to admitting he dreads it.

"Yeah," Stiles sighs. They step inside.

By the time Stiles locks the front door behind them, Allison's appeared at the far end of the entry hall and is eying Derek with the empty expression that's made the pack stop playing poker against her. Bravado fraying at the edges, Derek keeps his weight on the balls of his feet, as though preparing to run. "Hello, Allison," he says.

She tilts her head, an acknowledgement of his presence and nothing more. "Derek."

He nods. "You have a lovely home."

A proud grin spreads across Allison's face, and whether he intended it or not, Derek's fucking _nailed it_ , because this house is her pride and joy. She gestures further inside. "Welcome," she says, and even if she only means welcome to the house for the span of the meeting, her words settle one more layer of calm over Stiles.

Stiles steers Derek toward the kitchen first. Whatever's going down tonight, he'll be damned if he's facing it without one of Kira's killer brownies in hand. But it's not Kira they find in the kitchen. Braeden stands at the enormous island counter, slicing brownies in a silver pan with surgical precision. She's wearing her usual all-black ensemble—god, she's basically Derek with less angst.

Derek swallows and staggers to the counter. He seems mesmerized by Braeden, and Stiles blinks and changes gears. He hadn't considered this option, but he can make it happen. "Braeden," he says, "I didn't know you were in town."

"Delivering a message to Scott. Figured I'd stay for the meeting, make sure none of you are about to get your fool heads shot or bashed in or chopped off."

Stiles chuckles nervously and doesn't try to deny the possibility. Braeden knows them too well to fall for it. "Yeah, okay, so, Braeden, this is Derek Hale. He just got back from helping his sister break an Aymara curse in Bolivia. Derek, this is Braeden. She's a mercenary, but she's pretty nice to us. And, as a bonus, she usually lets us know when someone's offering a bounty on us."

Derek raises an eyebrow. Stiles has lost his fluency in the language of Derek Hale's eyebrows, but "glad to see you're still idiots" is a gimme. "That happen a lot?"

"We're getting to be a well-known and powerful pack," Stiles says. "People like taking shots at us to make themselves look good."

Braeden makes another perfectly clean cut with her knife. "Nice to finally meet you, Derek. Deaton talks about you." She gives him a frank once-over. "Gonna have to talk to him about what he chooses to say."

"Hi," Derek says, voice gone wobbly like a beautiful woman's never checked him out before. Well, Stiles supposes it's different when you _want_ the woman to look at you like that. Derek probably doesn't get a choice in that, most of the time. Then, as though that single syllable was his allotment of words for the moment, Derek clamps his mouth shut and reaches toward the green pan of brownies, cut and unattended at Braeden's elbow. She shoots her hand toward him, not looking away from her cutting, and wraps her fingers around his wrist. "Those are laced," she says. "Step away if you're not into that."

Derek takes a brownie. Braeden releases his wrist. He steps back from the counter—though he stays gratifyingly close to Braeden—and gestures between Stiles and the green pan.

Stiles' mouth drops open. "Are you fucking kidding me?" he demands. "Did you forget who I work for?"

"What?" Derek asks around a mouthful of brownie. "MLB doesn't do random testing."

"But they test under reasonable suspicion. Two years later, my complete and poorly explained personality change still counts as reasonable suspicion."

Derek chews, considers. "Sucks," he says.

Stiles flails. "Scott," he says quietly, eyes on Derek's face, "please tell Danny I'm leaving him for Derek's therapist." He hears Scott's startled laughter from the living room.

Derek gives him a toothy grin. "Adlerians are hot," he says approvingly. "Her birthday's next week. She'll be 70."

Stiles whimpers. "Where was this four years ago, asshole? You could've been the best second-best friend ever."

Derek shrugs. Braeden grins sharply at Stiles and gives him a sober brownie.

The front door opens, and Derek goes stiff and walks out of the room. "Probably Isaac," Stiles mouths to Braeden. He would kill to see this reunion, but he forces himself to stay in the kitchen. Some things need to be private.

Five minutes pass before Isaac and Derek stagger into the kitchen, faces pale and eyes suspiciously red around the edges, Isaac's arm around Derek's waist, Derek's around Isaac's shoulders. Braeden shakes the brownie pans at them. Isaac lurches forward and grabs one from the green pan. He says a distracted "Hi" to Stiles and Braeden and crams half the brownie into his mouth. Werewolves, seriously.

Stiles sniggers. "That's why Scott likes you so much."

"Fuck off, Stilinski," Isaac shoots back, swallowing with effort. "Like you're one to talk."

Stiles flicks halfheartedly at Isaac's arm. Isaac sidles away. He ducks out of Derek's hold and picks up the pans. "Meeting time!" he calls as he heads toward the living room.

Braeden follows immediately, but Stiles pauses, eying Derek. "You okay?"

"Lydia hit me," he says. He scowls and rubs a spot on his arm that surely no longer hurts.

"Good," Stiles says. "Somebody had to."

They're gathered in the living room in their usual configuration. On the couch, Scott, Allison, and Isaac intertwine in a way that puts Stiles in mind of Celtic knotwork, with Luke and Leia as lap blankets. Dad and Melissa are tucked into one love seat, and Danny's holding a spot for him on the other, Yogi tucked under his legs. Usually, Kira and Lydia would've taken the two armchairs that remained, but tonight Kira's hauled a chair in from the dining room and set it up next to Dad, where she's flopped with her elbow on the armrest of the love seat. Stiles settles beside Danny and motions Derek toward the empty armchair.

Derek pauses beside the chair, uncertain. "You're our guest, for now," Kira says. "A good chair for a good guest."

"He led those evil whatchamacallits to Stiles and Danny," Dad says. "I'm not sure he's a good guest." Ordinarily Stiles would balk at the hardness in Dad's tone, would insist that he's an adult who doesn't need his father fighting his battles for him. But today he's tied and scared and angry, because those things want Danny, and he can only give Dad a grateful smile.

"He makes a good point," Isaac says with a faint smirk. "It's been a while since we've had evil whatchamacallits here." Dad glares at him.

"I'm sorry about the fuath," Derek says as he sits. Braeden lowers herself to the floor in front of Derek's chair, forcing him to bracket her with his legs. Stiles doesn't crow.

"Thank you," Danny replies. He leans back, resting his shoulder against Stiles'. "So. Fuath. What do we know?"

"Their chief weapon is hate," Lydia says, switching into lecture mode. "They will wear you down with hate and then tear you up with spiked tails and clawed hooves."

"And they hate, like, _a lot_ ," Kira says. "Aggressively. They'll be pretty much relentless. Until we get them gone, it'll be like having your own pack of Westboro Baptist picketers following you around every night. It'll be draining."

"Only at night?" Melissa asks.

"Sunlight works against them," Allison says. "So does cold iron."

"That's it?" Scott looks vaguely sickened by the news, and Stiles agrees. "Two things?"

"They get disoriented if they cross running water, but that's about it."

"Wow," Stiles says, and he hates how weak his voice sounds. Panicked. "So we dodge them all night, run 'em across a stream a couple times, hit 'em with a frozen iron arrow and leave 'em in the sun to...what? Die? Go away? I mean, what's our end-game here?"

"Yeah, that'll get rid of the fuath, for now," Kira says, "but once they're dealt with, we _have to_ end this thing with the High Order."

"Assholes," Scott, Stiles, and Allison say in unison, reflexively. Kira and Braeden snicker; Lydia rolls her eyes; Dad and Melissa glare ineffectually.

Scott cocks his head at Braeden. "Is that right?" he asks. "Are they the ones behind this?"

Braeden nods. "I don't know the details; I don't get paid for that. But somebody in the Order is pissed at you."

"Wonderful," Stiles mutters. What the hell do they have to do to make these assholes leave Danny alone?

"Who are they?" Derek asks.

"They're Druids," Lydia says. She's picking around the edges of a brownie, and Stiles would give up a nut for ten minutes to know which pan it came from. "We don't know if they had power and lost it or if they never had power but pretend they do."

"It's not like with Jennifer," Isaac rushes to reassure Derek. "They're not evil, just..." He looks to the others for help.

"They've gotten too big for their britches," Dad supplies. Stiles absolutely cannot stop the bark of laughter that pops out of him.

Lydia wisely pretends none of that happened. "The High Order fancies itself the Druidry police, goes around punishing people for what it considers crimes against the tradition." She glances at Danny. "It gets particularly uptight about emissaries."

"I didn't think you were a Druid." Derek tells Danny.

"I'm not," Danny says. "Not _really._ That's their problem."

* * *

Stiles looked like he was about to pass out. He'd come downstairs twenty minutes ago—ten minutes before the _earliest_ ETA—and he'd been sitting for maybe three of them. He'd spent the other seventeen minutes twitching his way around the entryway and living room, studying the same photos he'd looked at almost daily for two years, rearranging Danny's precise groupings of dried flowers and ceramic vessels, flipping the living room curtains back and forth and running his fingers across the fabric. Yogi paced vigilantly at his side.

Every time Stiles' circuit brought him past, Danny's fingers itched to reach out and stop him, to pin him in place and root his energy into the ground. The bond between them was subtle, forged by magic and usually fading into Danny's background awareness, but Stiles was so on edge that Danny felt his anxiety burst like sparks in the air. He forced down his impatience, trying to project calm, certainty, and compassion. He couldn't tell how he was doing, but Stiles hadn't passed out or gone into a full-fledged panic attack yet, so he must be doing _something_ right.

Suddenly Stiles stopped in front of him—Danny hadn't realized he'd been on a close enough pass. Stiles' hands gripped Danny's arms painfully tightly, and his face swam way too close to Danny's. "She's going to hate me!" he wailed.

Danny leaned back and disentangled himself from Stiles' looming. "She will not. How could she? She loves you."

"She loves the _idea_ of me," Stiles corrected. "Most people end up not that crazy about the reality of me."

Danny took Stiles' hands between his own and raised them to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to Stiles' fingertips. "Well, I love the idea of you _and_ the reality of you. And she loves me, so she'll have to love you, too."

"It doesn't work like that _at all_ ," Stiles grumbled. Danny released him to continue pacing.

The faint protesting whine of a taxi engine sounded in the driveway. By the window, where he'd been staring at the backyard and probably not seeing any of it, Stiles froze like a spooked rabbit. Danny crossed the room and took Stiles' hands again. "I can't promise that everything will be okay," he said, "but I'm pretty sure everything will be okay."

Stiles laughed, but shakily. "Okay," he said, and Danny thought he believed it. "Yeah. Let's introduce me to your grandmother."

Three years had passed since Danny last saw Tutu, and he'd braced himself for her to look _old_. Changes could happened fast, at her age (whatever that was; Danny had come to suspect that he'd been told a lot of not exactly accurate things about Tutu's life). But when the door opened and he saw her outlined in the doorway, sun streaming down on her white hair, she looked unchanged. Unchangeable. Timeless. He let out a relieved sigh and rushed forward into her arms.

"Daniel," she said, delighted, as her arms wrapped tight around him. She gave truly amazing hugs. "Back up. Let me look at you."

Danny blushed. "Tutu..." But he backed up and spread his arms so she could look. Ever since Mr. and Mrs. Friedmeir bought the house next door to Tutu, a lot of "old Jewish grandmother" had been sneaking into her grandparenting style.

Unlike Mrs. Friedmeir, whose hen-pecked family Danny always felt bad for, Tutu looked him over and smiled brightly. "You look _wonderful_ ," she said, reaching for him. He lowered his hands, and she took them, giving them a strong squeeze. "Love suits you."

It did, at that. He angled his body to form a sort of line from Tutu to Stiles. "Tutu, this is my boyfriend, Stiles Stilinski. Stiles, my grandmother, Mary Ka'aukai."

Danny watched the pulse hammer in the vein behind Stiles' ear and the way his tongue darted out to wet his lips two, then three times as he stepped forward. "Mrs. Ka'aukai, it's such an honor to meet you," he said. "Danny says wonderful things about you."

Tutu tilted her head up—she'd always been short, tiny like a bird. And yet she'd never seemed frail or delicate; even as a child Danny had been aware of the power that small body contained. Tutu studied Stiles intently, her dark eyes shining with merriment Danny wasn't sure was entirely benign. Then she clucked her tongue once and patted Stiles' cheek. "You're a sweet boy," she said. "Call me Mary."

Stiles' back and shoulders relaxed. He actually winked at Tutu. "In that case, you can call me Stiles."

Tutu actually _pouted_ , looking up at Stiles from under her eyelashes. "But I learned how to say Przemysław."

Stiles gave a burst of startled laughter, loud and bright. "And you did all right. But, _please_ , call me Stiles."

"Hmm," Tutu said. She took one of Stiles' hands in both of hers, a sweet, familial gesture. "I'll save Przemysław for when you do something very bad." Danny snickered, because she _would_.

"Now, Daniel," she said crisply, "show me my room, and then let me look around this magnificent home. I need to get a feeling for your space if I'm going to whip your magic into shape."

Danny did _not_ like the sound of that. Yes, they'd asked her to come for exactly this reason (begged, if he were honest), but he'd hoped for _guidance_ , not whipping of any kind. He should've known better than to think _they_ could control what they were in for when she arrived.

Three hours later, Danny's legs were about to buckle under him; he could barely raise his arms; and a relentless cacophony, like he was standing directly underneath Niagara Falls, roared in his ears. His sole consolation was that Stiles looked equally miserable as they sweated and swore their way around the back yard together, grateful for the high fence and the privacy Beacon Hills wouldn't have afforded them. On the deck, Tutu looked as fresh as a daisy, settled into an Adirondack chair, a glass of iced tea in her hand and the first spellbook Marin had given Danny on her lap. Yogi sprawled at her side, head on her paws, seemingly unconcerned that her humans were enduring extended magical torture. "You boys are doing fine," Tutu called, not looking up from the book.

Anger surged in Danny, and he tried to tamp it down, but Stiles' spark, which had been seeking _anything_ it could pull from, grabbed on and tugged hard. The anger flared bright and sharp between them, mixed now with Stiles' startled confusion. The square of lawn between them burst into flames, and then a shower of rain extinguished it.

Danny slumped over, hands on his thighs. His breath came ragged and racing, and his head felt like someone was squeezing it in a vice. Stiles fell onto the ground in the singed patch, wincing when the still-hot ground scorched his t-shirt.

"Passable," Tutu said from the deck. She sounded bored. "Again."

" _No_." Danny forced himself upright, groaning. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. "We're done, Tutu. Tapped out." He thought he might be shouting, but the roaring in his ears was so loud he couldn't tell. "If we have to do it again, you won't like what happens." He waved his hand around at the whole undertaking. "I don't even know the _point_ of this."

Tutu studied him. She looked to be weighing his words, his _worth_. She set her tea and his book on the deck and made her way down the steps and across the yard. But when she arrived she looked not at Danny but at Stiles, gasping on the ground. "You. Druid. Up."

With obvious struggle, Stiles sat upright. Danny assumed Tutu meant for Stiles to stand, and he suspected Stiles knew that, too, but given the condition they were in, she should count herself lucky to get this much. "Technically," Stiles said, voice cracked with exhaustion, "I'm a spark."

"Who's been trained by Druids."

" _A_ Druid."

Danny cringed. Stiles wasn't doing himself any favors talking to her this way.

"Hmph," Tutu said. She turned, aiming her laser-focused gaze at Danny. "And _you_ , young man, are you _sure_ you defeated a demon in the Limn?"

Danny felt heat flood his cheeks, and he looked down. "I didn't exactly defeat him," he admitted. "We came to...a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"Still," Tutu said, "you stood up to him, tried to fight, and didn't get torn to pieces?"

Danny bristled. "Why is that hard to believe?"

"Because you are a _mess_!" Tutu tutted and scanned his body. He didn't want to know what she saw; lately he'd felt run-down, magically, and his aura was probably shot to shit. "That Druid who's been teaching you has you all messed up. It's a wonder you can access your magic at all!"

"Marin's a good teacher." Danny didn't know why he felt compelled to stick up for Marin. He respected her and mostly trusted her, but he was still wary of her.

"I'm sure she's a fine teacher of Druid ways," Tutu said, voice gentler. "But those aren't your ways, ku'u ipo. That Druid magic, it needs _order_ , or it runs wild and destroys everything. That's okay for Stiles, because a spark can be a thing that nurtures or a thing that consumes, depending on how it's managed. But your magic comes from the ocean. It _belongs_ to the ocean. And the ocean isn't much one for control."

Danny crossed his arms. "I made rain. _Inside_ our house."

Tutu grinned toothily. "If I'd been the one to teach you, you could've made a _tsunami_."

"That's not okay!" Danny yelped. "Tutu—"

"Oh, yes, you could've made the rain, too," she said dismissively. Her shrewd eyes zoomed in on him once more, and she tapped the side of her nose. "That's the paradox, isn't it? The more you let go of control, the more you _get_ control."

Cold terror washed through Danny. He couldn't let go of control. He _couldn't_. Every aspect of his life hung together by the sheer force of his will and the relentless façade of tranquility he presented to the world. If he relaxed even a fraction, everything would unravel.

Danny watched realization come over Tutu's expression. She stepped closer and put her hand on his arm. "It's not healthy," she said, lowering her voice. "You're going to kill yourself if you keep bottling everything up like this."

"What choice do I have?" he asked, hearing the plaintive wobble in his tone and not sure he could stop it. "I'm the _emissary_. The pack needs me to be strong, calm, and collected. I'm supposed to be the one maintaining balance, for god's sake."

"First of all, don't give me that calm, collected balance crap. There's a lot of different ways to be an emissary, and anyone who says otherwise is a damned fool. Second, don't you think they deserve the truth? If you're a pack, you need to be honest with each other. Let each other know when you're struggling. They'll take care of you; it's what packs _do_." Her gaze traveled to Stiles, about to go out of his mind with worry over what they were being secretive about. "If you aren't willing to do that, at least tell _him_. I'm not one to say there should never be secrets between partners—a body's got to keep _something_ for themselves—but something this big? No. That's a cancer in a relationship, and if you don't rip it out, it'll eat away everything good between you until you have nothing left to hold onto."

Danny swallowed hard. Tears prickled the corners of his eyes, and he blinked fiercely, forcing them away. He _couldn't_ do what she asked. Not yet. Stiles was improving daily, but he still struggled to stay afloat in the flood of emotions that had returned at the darkness' departure. Right now, he needed Danny to be strong for him. And the pack was so new, a fragile and tentative thing that needed care and nurturance, not Danny adding his baggage to its heap of trouble. Someday, he promised himself. Someday, when Stiles had his feet under him more consistently and the pack was stronger.

Danny opened his mouth to say all of this, or some of it, or some convenient, believable lie. Tutu held up her hand to silence him before he'd begun. "Daniel," she said, and though her tone remained soft, no one could deny the _force_ behind her words. "If you can't do this, I can't help you."

Danny blinked. "Help me how?"

She rolled her eyes. "Children," she muttered, which Danny felt like he ought to take offense at, since he was almost 20 and had been through a hell of a lot more than most people twice his age, but given his growing suspicions that Tutu was _far_ older than he'd been led to believe, he suspected her definition of "children" included pretty much everyone. "I can teach you how to loosen your control and grab more of your power." Danny's mind reeled at the implications of that. Half the time he felt like his powers were drowning him. He didn't like to imagine _more_. Reading his mind—or his horrified expression—again, Tutu clucked her tongue and said, "Ku'u ipo, don't you know? You're a Ka'aukai. If you only knew how, you could have the power of the _entire ocean_ at your command."

It was, without exception, the most terrifying thing anyone had ever said to him.

(Two days later, Danny kissed his deeply disappointed grandmother on the cheek, thanked her for her time and insights, and put her in a cab to the airport. He returned to his lessons with Marin, who never _said_ anything about the change in him but whose narrowed eyes and hard-set expression told him she knew. He threw himself into his lessons, but the damage was done. He'd never be a "normal" Druid.)

* * *

They huddle shoulder-to-shoulder in the ditch, peering into the gathering dusk. The mood thickens with anticipation, heavy with the knowledge of danger. They're pretty sure two fuath can't overpower the entire pack, but they can do a lot of damage if the pack can't stay ahead of them.

At the end of the row, Allison checks and rechecks her arrowheads, testing sharpness, scrutinizing for nicks. Kira and Lydia crouch behind a wide array of weaponry. Lydia's fingers trail slowly back and forth across them so they're never far from her grasp; Kira's hand rests lightly on the hilt of her katana. At various points along the line, the weres extend and retract their claws with quiet snicks, and their eyes periodically flash, red and blue and gold, as they scan the deepening shadows. And Danny...Stiles feels his magic moving, like the water cycle, flowing between states, ready to be called to any purpose at any moment.

"So. You and Braeden," Stiles whispers into the tense and waiting silence. "How's that going?"

Down the line, Scott and Isaac choke back laughter. Derek turns wide green eyes on Stiles. "Did you really," he says, and, oh, how Stiles has _missed_ his nonquestion questions.

"Not like we've got much else to do," he says.

"We could try _not calling attention to ourselves,_ " Derek hisses, turning back to watching the copse of trees where their recon suggests the fuath have been hiding out.

"Dude, come on, we _want_ them to find us," Stiles argues, flailing a hand around. "That's the point of being in this ditch. If we were hiding, we'd be _hiding_ , not hunkering down behind, like, a lump of dirt."

"Stop talking," Derek grits out. It feels like an improvement over a plain old "Shut up."

Stiles leans across Derek, but whatever he'd meant to say dies on his tongue when he sees Danny's pinched expression. Stiles frowns and clambers over Derek, mute to his angry protests, until he's crouching next to Danny. "Danny? Dude, what is it?"

"Nothing," Danny says, too quickly.

Before he can call Danny on it, Stiles feels Derek tense, electric-blue gaze cutting to the trees. In his periphery, Stiles sees Scott and Isaac do the same. Derek carries out some wordless wolf-brother bullshit with them and then looks at Danny.

Danny nods back, mouth tight. His expression looks different now, too—fear and determination in equal measure. He raises his arm and waits until he has everyone's attention. Then he lets loose a barrage of hand signals.

The fuath burst from the trees.

Derek was right on when he described the fuath as furry, wet, yellow horses, but that hadn't given Stiles a sense of _scale_. It's like someone crossed a Clydesdale with a dirty polar bear. They stand nearly ten feet tall at the head, and their long yellow fur, though scraggly, gives them a sense of volume, of taking up even _more_ space than they do.

Only the green champrons they wear on their foreheads mar their imposing appearance. They're green leather with metal scrollwork, and they look... _delicate_ , better suited to prancing show ponies than to two ancient mythological beings who can break the pack's will with sheer hate and then rip them apart. Legend says the fuath wear green, but it could've been _any_ green. They didn't have to put on something that makes them look...less. Not that they look less right now, heads lowered and clawed hooves tearing up the ground.

It's just him and Derek; they drew the first shift of what promises to be an incredibly long night of letting the fuath tire themselves out chasing the pack around. Stiles crouches, preparing to run. He hears Derek do the same beside him. "Ready?" Stiles asks, and Derek nods. " _Run_!" They charge forward, as fast as they can, toward the creek that meanders through the preserve. It's all they can do, for now.

Forty minutes later, they throw themselves to the ground behind a broad-trunked oak. Stiles' lungs heave, and even Derek looks slightly winded. Stiles takes pride in how productive they've been. They led the fuath across the creek, and in their ensuing confusion, Stiles magically chilled a handful of iron pellets that they flung at the shaggy bastards. Now they're running the fuath around, dodging and hiding. They have a solid enough lead to rest for a few minutes, which is damned good, because Stiles' muscles ache and his shins are a mass of scratches from where Derek charged them into a patch of stinging nettle ( _his_ legs have completely healed, of course).

He wishes, with a fierceness that takes him by surprise, that it could be Danny beside him, arm around his shoulder, offering to kiss it better. But the plan calls for shifter/nonshifter pairs, with Kira and Lydia spelling Stiles and Allison as needed. Scott assigned the pairs, and his reason for sticking Stiles with Derek remain an impenetrable mystery. So they'll have no reprieve from each other until Allison and Isaac start their shift. He can only run his breathing exercises like they're the salvation of the fucking planet and keep his damned mouth shut.

"Why'd you do it?"

Well. That strategy served him brilliantly for five seconds.

"Stiles," Derek says, his voice a soft sigh.

"I mean. I know why you had to leave. And I understand—" Tears sting his eyes, and he doesn't bother blinking them away, lets them fall in fat plops on his cheeks and chin. "I understand why you didn't say good-bye to me. But Isaac, man. He _needed_ you. And you didn't—" He shakes his head. "I don't _get it._ "

"I would've stayed," Derek says, eyes straight ahead. "If I'd talked to you or Isaac before we left, I would've stayed."

"We wouldn't have asked you to," Stiles insists. "Anyway, _I_ wouldn't've. I don't think."

"You wouldn't have had to. Just _seeing_ you. You were..." Derek's hands curl in fists where they rest on the ground beside his legs. "You all _wanted_ something from me."

"Hey, man, not me. I didn't want shit from you."

" _Stiles_ ," Derek says, looking over.

"Okay, maybe, but look. _You_ turned Isaac. _You_ promised Scott wolf brotherhood Shangri La. _You_ —" He swallows, looks down at his hands. "Well, I don't know what, with us," he says, quieter. "But I don't think I imagined the direction things were heading."

"No," Derek admits softly. "You didn't."

Stiles releases a long, shaky exhale. It feels _good_ to hear Derek admit that.

"The thing is," Derek says finally, "I messed up, and I thought that only leaving could fix it. Scott didn't want anything to do with me or my 'wolf brotherhood.' Isaac still saw me as his alpha, and I didn't know how to act around him once I lost my alpha powers." He falls silent again, gaze flickering back and forth as though he's reading his next words in the air. "You and me...neither of us were in a good place for that." Something spiteful twists his lips as he adds, "as you proved when you jumped on the next warm body that happened past."

Rage flares in Stiles' veins. "You shut your fucking mouth," he hisses, struggling to keep his voice in check, to not scream and call the fuath to them. "You know _jack_ about me and Danny, okay, so keep your fucking insults to yourself. He was _not_ the next warm body. He's not a fucking consolation prize. Don't think so fucking highly of yourself."

"I'm sorry," Derek says. "That wasn't nice."

"It also isn't _true_. I'm with Danny because I _love him_ , and because he _gets me_ , and because the sex is _mind-blowing_. Not because my first choice wasn't available. Whatever you're thinking," he says, and he is _terrified_ by how dark his voice sounds, how ominous, " _stop._ Right fucking now."

Derek's eyes widen, and he leans away. Christ, when did he get so close? "Yeah," he says. "Okay. Sorry."

"Damn _right_ you are," Stiles mutters. "Then what?"

Derek's eyebrows lower. It's a squiggly lowering, signifying confusion rather than anger. "Then what what?"

"That's why you left without a word. But then you were gone for _four years,_ and none of us heard a word out of you."

"I meant to. After we'd settled and were playing tourist around the old places. But then I read this article. I don't even know why I looked up Beacon Hills."

"Masochism, probably," Stiles cuts in.

"Probably. Anyway, I found this article, on the high school website. Allison won some archery competition. And it had a picture, Allison and Scott and Isaac and Lydia. They looked... _happy_."

He turns to Stiles with his eyes wide. _Beseeching_. He's asking Stiles to understand. But Stiles is fresh out of tolerance for Derek's self-flagellation, so he scoffs. "And you thought, what, because they smiled in _one fucking picture_ that we were happier without you?"

"I—" Derek looks down at his hands. "Maybe."

"Christ, you're an idiot," Stiles mutters. He turns sideways to face Derek, although Derek refuses to look at him. "Listen," he says, "things went _a lot_ to shit after you left. It wasn't _because_ you left, okay? It was because Deaton thought it would be a fun idea to turn Beacon Hills into a fucking _lighthouse_ for every creepy-crawly in the bestiary. But we were lost, confused kids, and it would've helped a _whole damned lot_ to have someone who'd grown up around this shit to help us. Plus, you know... _you_. We would've liked having _you_ around. For you."

"Scott—"

"Whatever. Scott runs hot and cold on his own dumb _face_ most days, okay? You didn't see how hard he took it when he thought the alpha pack had killed you. We missed you. _I_ missed you. And it wasn't—don't make that face," he snipes. "I don't mean—even after Danny and I started dating, I missed you. I meant it, last night. We could've been awesome friends."

Derek looks downright hopeful as he slides a sideways glance Stiles' way. "And now?"

"And now," Stiles says firmly, holding his gaze, "it depends on how long you're willing to stick around. I don't waste my time making friends with people who're gonna run away."

Derek sighs, but Stiles hears a smile in the sound, as well. "I guess I could try staying, for a while."

Stiles makes a pleased sound and goes back to leaning against his tree, waiting for the fuath to find them again.

* * *

Stiles languished on the DL for three weeks. By the time his doctor cleared him to return to practice, he'd bookmarked thirty adoptable dogs on the Peninsula Humane Society website, repainted all three bedrooms in the Beacon Hills condo, and set five minor fires in five different kitchens with his cooking experiments. He felt itchy under his skin, restless and unfocused.

It would've been twenty times worse without therapy. Mandy had directed them toward Estella, San Mateo County's only supernatural-aware psychologist. Three times a week he flopped across her disgustingly comfortable lilac couch and tried to explain what it was like to have energy and emotions again after two years of numbness.

Stiles walked into his first day of practice with his heart in his throat. He was so excited to get back to baseball he practically vibrated with it. He knew how close teammates could be, knew that most of the guys saw the team as their family. Stiles knew about building families of choice; he could do that here.

If he could get his teammates to stop thinking he was an unhinged sociopath.

Stiles felt the locker-room hubbub as much as he heard it. Practice days had a different energy from game days. The guys were looser. They joked more. And then Stiles walked through the door, and a pall fell over the room. Conversations strangled and died as his teammates caught sight of him. The guys shifted from foot to foot, gazes darting to him and away. Stiles' breath wheezed through his rapidly closing throat. His hand dove into his pocket and grasped the slick surface of his phone. Danny, Dad, and Scott were 1-2-3 on his emergency contact list, and they'd made him promise he would call if anything went wrong, if he felt overwhelmed or out of control. He wasn't about to call to say, "Everyone's looking at me," but he drew strength from knowing he had the option, that they were there for him if he needed them.

He took three shaky steps into the room. He felt a million miles from the dead-eyed ice king who'd walked out of here before the Cards game, the one who'd casually broken a homophobe's shoulder and only spoke to his teammates when absolutely necessary. The transformation would be...jarring, at least. He tried a smile. Hinkley walked into his open locker door.

Two lockers farther down, Dominguez started laughing. Stiles looked over, mouth falling open at the sight of the usually hyperfocused pitcher laughing so hard he could barely stand upright, one large hand gripping his locker door, the other braced across his heaving stomach. Dominguez lowered his head, and his gaze caught Stiles'. Stiles smiled uncertainly, and Dominguez beamed back between dwindling attacks of snickering.

A weight lifted from Stiles' shoulders. He walked across the room, steps quick and firm. Harcastle and Montenegro moved aside to let him at his locker, but it wasn't the wide and terrified berth they'd given him before. He remembered that Dom liked cigars and vowed to buy him a case, or whatever cigars came in, as thanks for cracking the ice-thick tension.

He finished changing before most of his teammates, even with their head start, because he had no prepractice superstitions. His life regularly featured the sorts of terrors that superstitions were meant to keep away; he didn't see the point to them. He took a few steps away from his locker, away from his teammates, and started running arm stretches, mostly to work out his nervous energy. As soon as Dominguez closed his locker, Stiles dropped his arms and loped over to him. "Hey, Dom," he said.

"Stilinski." Dom slapped Stiles on the back. "Welcome back, man."

Stiles poured all his gratitude into his smile. "Thanks, man. For everything."

They walked toward the field, Stiles slapping his catcher's mitt against his thigh. "Your man gonna be here today?" Dom asked.

Stiles glanced in the direction of the WAG section, though he couldn't see it yet. "Better be. He's my ride. Probably do homework the whole time, too, because he's a giant nerd."

"Hot nerd," Dom said. Stiles tripped on his shoe. "Hey, man," Dom said, "just because I don't swing that way doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good-looking guy."

"He's definitely that," Stiles agreed. As they stepped onto the field, he brushed his thumb over a small, wave-shaped tattoo on his wrist. In the bleachers, Danny raised his head. If Stiles squinted, he could just make out a small smile.

The WAG section was fairly empty today, yet a small, dark-haired woman sat pressed close to Danny, talking rapidly at him. Stiles nudged Dom. "Hey, is that—"

Dom groaned. "Oh, lord. Caro's adopted him. I'm sorry."

"Adopted?" Stiles watched the two heads press close together as, he figured, Danny showed Carolina something on his iPad. "She's, what, five years older than us?"

"Like that matters to her." Dom spun a ball in his hands, and Stiles watched, mesmerized by the lightning-fast roll of it over Dom's dark fingers. "Collector of lost children, she is."

Stiles laughed. Lost children. If either of them were a lost child—

He froze, staring into the stands at Danny. For the past two years, Danny had kept his focus on Stiles. Battling his darkness. Dragging him from the depths of depression. Ensuring that he continued to function as a human being. And all while balancing a full load of college classes, parents who didn't know their son was a fully trained witch, an alpha who couldn't understand why his pack's magic users wouldn't fall in line, and a small but determined crowd of paparazzi. It had started when Danny was _18_ —the year Stiles signed with the Giants; the year the darkness intensified and the speed of encroachment accelerated. No one should have to endure what Danny had at any age—and he'd done it as a teenager.

If either of them were a lost child, it was Danny.

"Empathy," Stiles said quietly. The word held a certain wonder.

Dom looked over at him. "What?"

"Empathy," Stiles repeated. "It's—you know what? Never mind. Can you hold on a second?"

Dom glanced toward the owners' box, scratching his cheek. "Not me you need to worry about."

"Self-preservation," Stiles scoffed. "That one definitely hasn't come back yet." He jogged over to the WAG section, where a few women had joined Danny and Carolina but held themselves apart. Carolina had a reputation bad enough to counter the WAGs' universal love of Danny. Stiles leaned against the low wall and tilted his head at Danny. "Hey," he said. Danny came down to the wall and leaned against the other side. His hundred-watt smile distracted like nothing else, but Stiles would not be deterred. "Empathy," he announced proudly.

Danny made a face like Stiles was a puppy who'd incorrectly demonstrated a trick. "Empathy," he repeated.

Stiles nodded eagerly. "I had some. For you." He waved at Carolina. "You and Dom should come over. We have a place. With a grill. That I am totally awesome at." He looked at Danny again. "Right? I am good at it, aren't I?"

Danny smiled at Stiles like he couldn't help himself. "You're very good at the grill. And kind of nothing else, cooking-wise."

"Eh, whatever," Stiles said. "Everything worth eating can be grilled. Listen, I have to go catch things. Hit other things. Love you. Bye!" He ran off and took his place behind the batters' box.

But he felt wrong. _Off_. Should he have said more _about_ the empathy? What'd made him feel it, how it made him feel about Danny? Worry nagged at the back of his consciousness. He was coming back, piece by piece, but maybe not _enough_ pieces. Maybe not fast enough. He'd started to believed he could do this. That coming back to the game _proved_ he could do it. What if it only meant he could play baseball, and he was doomed to fail with everything else? With _Danny._ By the time practice ended, his hands were trembling.

The instant he left the field, he had his phone to his ear, the cool plastic jumping in his shaking fingers.

"Stiles?" Dad asked when he picked up. "What's wrong?"

"Dad," Stiles said breathlessly, forehead pressed against the rough stadium wall, "when I was—when things got bad, what was the breakdown on who took care of me?"

He didn't think he'd phrased it right, but from the sharp way Dad exhaled, the point came across. "I'm gonna say 75 percent Danny, 23 percent me, two percent Lydia, but that's to make myself feel less guilty. In reality, it was closer to 80-18-2."

Stiles turned his head back and forth a couple times, feeling the concrete scrape against his forehead. "And... who took care of Danny?"

Dad's loud, damning silence was filled with all the things Stiles didn't want to hear.

Caregiver burnout. That's what they'd called it when Dad withdrew from everything in the month before Mom died. And now history had repeated itself with Stiles and Danny. For two years, Stiles had almost no one but Danny. Danny had no one at all.

"Stiles?" Dad asked hesitantly. "Stiles, you okay?"

"Of course I'm not okay!" he shouted and then clapped his mouth shut when the sound bounced accusingly around the tunnel walls. "Danny, all this time he—and I didn't—"

"Stiles!" Dad said sharply. "He's okay. He's been seeing Estella for a long time. He knew how to handle it."

"Nobody knows how to handle this, Dad!" He was crying now, fast on his way to a panic attack, tears running hot and slick down his face. "Dad," he keened.

"Stiles, listen to me," Dad said sternly.

"Stiles? Crap, Stiles, what's wrong?"

For a minute Stiles' brain couldn't process it, the voice against his ear and the voice behind him. He tilted his head, and there Danny stood, just out of arms' reach in case Stiles didn't want to be touched. "Danny," Stiles whispered brokenly.

"Is he there?" Dad asked in his ear. "Stiles, is Danny there now?"

"Yeah," Stiles said.

"Do you need me to stay on the line anyway?"

"I'm not—I don't—" The phone tumbled from his hand to the concrete floor, but he barely noticed, too busy flinging himself at Danny.

Danny grunted in surprise, but his arms came up to close around Stiles, holding him tight. One of Danny's hands stroked Stiles' hair, and he murmured nonsense words and sounds against the side of Stiles' face where their cheeks pressed together. "It's okay, Stiles. I'm here."

And it _wasn't_ okay; it _couldn't_ be, not with what Stiles had realized, and god damn he was doing it _again_ , making Danny take care of him when this should be about him taking care of Danny. A frustrated grumble worked its way up his throat, and he pushed back and out of Danny's arms. Danny stood in front of him, hands clasped, waiting. Waiting to take care of Stiles. Again. Stiles took a breath to steady himself and forced himself to look Danny in the eyes, although he felt so fucking ashamed he wanted to stare at the floor until it opened up and swallowed him. "Who took care of you?" he blurted. Danny's eyebrows dipped in confusion. "When I was—when the darkness got bad. Who took care of you?"

Understanding bloomed across Danny's face. "I took care of myself." The bottom dropped out of Stiles' stomach, and Danny hastily took a half-step forward. "It doesn't sound like much, but Estella taught me so much about self-care. When we were together, I was _right there_ for you, but when we were apart, I didn't do a damn thing that had anything to do with you. You'd go on road trips, and I'd go on three-day spa retreats with Caro Dominguez and Lizzie Harcastle. Your dad would come down to visit, and I'd pack a lunch and bike to the refuge, spend the day meditating and reading pre-colonial Hawaiian poetry."

Stiles snorted despite himself. "Nerd," he muttered.

"Probably. But it let me keep coming back at the end of the day." A shadow crossed Danny's face. "Yeah, it would've been _great_ if more people had been willing to help, or if the people who were willing were closer and able to do more. But it was...enough."

It _ought to_ be true. It had that air of reluctantly made confession. But it felt _hollow_ , like the foundation was stable but a whole lot of structure hadn't been piled onto it. Stiles touched one fingertip to the back of Danny's hand. "Enough?" he echoed.

Danny exhaled sharply. "God, I'd forgotten," he said. "Before things got bad, you were _so good_ at reading me. When we started dating, I couldn't get anything past you."

"But you tried," he said. "Usually by complimenting my perceptiveness as a way to avoid answering my question. Like you're doing now."

Danny pushed his hand through his hair and sighed. "It was enough to survive," he said, and _this_ felt like the confession he'd been fighting not to make. "But maybe not to _live_."

Stiles' vision blurred, but he forced himself to breathe, to stay present. This wasn't about him. It couldn't be. "I want you to live, Danny. Christ, I want you to fucking thrive like a...I don't know; I know fuck-all about plants, so this metaphor was a crap idea. But I want you to be like a fucking weed that's so _alive_ you can't get rid of it, no matter how hard anybody tries. I want that for you. How can I help you get it?"

Danny's laugh was one part startled, one part charmed, and one part relieved _._ "God, that...that might be the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."

"That's a yes to letting me help you? Letting me take care of you for a change?"

"It...it'll be hard," Danny admitted, and his gaze slid away from Stiles'. "What I need...it's a big list. And I'm going to be shit about asking, because I got used to _not_ asking. Basically, I'm going to be a stubborn martyr who doesn't know how to ask for what I need, and you're going to have to deal with it."

Stiles hauled Danny in for a signature Stilinski hug. "I look forward to dealing with it," he promised.

* * *

"What are you _doing_?" Scott demands, voice rising to a high shriek at the end. "Don't run toward the fuath! Run _away_."

They'd _almost_ made it. Almost to the end of Scott and Danny's shift, almost to sunrise, and not a sign of the fuath. But now the forest rings with hoofbeats, and it looks like their luck's run out. "No," Danny snarls, turning to glare at him. "I'm tired of running away, Scott. Aren't you?"

"What the hell are you talking about? They're giant evil horse-things with clawed hooves. I will never be tired of running away from them!"

Scott doesn't see yet, doesn't understand how much bigger this is than the fuath. "Don't you get sick of being 'nice'? Of being 'the nice one'? 'Oh, Scott's a puppy.' 'Oh, nothing ever gets to Danny; he's so _forgiving_.'" His eyes narrow. "Because nobody likes an angry brown man, right? Nobody likes when we get uppity."

"Oh, Danny, wow, okay, I get that," Scott says, "and it's a totally valid point, but maybe we can talk about it when we're _not_ being chased by angry creatures that want to maul us?"

"There'll always be something with this damned pack," he spits. "Always another fucking excuse."

He hears thundering footsteps in the trees, swears he feels the hot gusts of hateful breaths. Scott's eyes are wild and red. "Danny—"

"How many people have called you 'spic,' Scott?" Danny stomps forward, shoving up the sleeves of his sweater, letting that glorious fiery hate-magic boil the water in his spirit, letting it turn his well of bullshit placidity into scalding steam. "How many teachers acted like they _knew_ you'd be lazy from the color of your skin?" Skin which, for the record, looks green-tinged as Scott staggers beside him. "How many frats invited you to rush because your record says 'McCall' and dropped you because your face says 'Delgado'?" Scott is shaking. Danny doesn't regret it. He feels good about helping Scott wake up and remember that he's been handed a lot of shit by white Beacon Hills.

"It's not—our pack's not—"

"Christ, I barely think they remember we're different races, most days. Half the time I think Stiles looks at us and sees white dudes who tan really well."

"No," Scott says fiercely, steel coming back into his tone and gaze. "He doesn't, don't even—"

"And your relationship, shit," Danny continues, relentless. "Hard enough being in an interracial gay relationship in this town, but that bisexual poly thing you three have going? People must _hate_ you."

"They don't—"

"Everyone thinks they're quiet, don't they? They don't know about werewolf ears. They don't know you and Isaac hear every goddamned word they say about you, how it's not right, and who does he think he is? And you let it roll off you, don't you?" Danny sneers. He draws up fire to enhance his vision, to peer into the trees in search of his prey. "Sweet Dr. McCall, so polite, never an angry word to anyone." He snorts. "You wouldn't let anyone treat a _dog_ the way people in this town treat you." Scott's nostrils flare, and the tips of his fangs push past his lips. Good. _Good_. Danny can use that glorious angry energy to push the fuath back to Ireland. And then he can get the Order out of his life forever. Out of _everyone's_ lives. "Only it doesn't roll off, does it? You put on a good face, but it sinks into your skin. Into your soul. Weighs you down more every day. A hundred thousand pinpricks of other people's hate, other people's misconceptions. Nothing you can do about it, and not many who get it."

"Isaac and Stiles," Scott tries, but it's a weak defense, and he knows it.

"Are white. They get to rant. Blow off steam. Fling that anger away. You and me, we have to keep it. Lock it down tight where no one can see it. And it's killing us. Right now, where we stand, it's killing us."

" _You're_ killing us, Danny." Scott's hung up on the physical danger, willfully oblivious to the danger posed to their psyches every day. Danny focuses on pulling up what he needs to defeat the fuath so they can get on with their damned lives. He reaches deep within, like Marin taught him. Deeper than she taught him. Deeper than he's ever dared.

Two mighty roars shake the trees, and the fuath burst out of the woods and into the clearing where Scott and Danny stand.

"Lead them toward the creek!" Scott screams, gesturing behind them. "We have time! We can hold them off! Derek says sunrise is in ten minutes."

 _Derek_. As if his other rage isn't burning hot enough, now Danny's thinking about that asshole, the one who abandoned his pack—abandoned _Stiles_ —and thinks he can waltz back into their lives like he never left. That asshole who gets to spend the entire night with Danny's boyfriend, enjoying funny, flirty, sarcastic Stiles without having had to deal with four years of depressed, struggling, disconnected Stiles, that asshole who lands bruised and battered on their doorstep when everything is finally calm and stable, dragging trouble behind him like a broken leg. This anger hurts, because tendrils of fear wrap around it, but it's good. Danny welcomes its sting, adds it to the rest.

Scott's still screaming about the damned creek. The fuath are so near he feels their fetid breath gust over his head, rustling his hair.

Danny reaches down. He draws deep. He will fight hate with hate.

Nothing happens. And nothing happens. _And nothing fucking happens._

The fuath run neck-and-neck, so close Danny sees the wild rolling of their eyes. One rears up on its hind legs, wickedly sharp clawed front hooves slashing the air. They're aimed at his chest, those claws, and he imagines what they'll feel like slashing into his flesh. He reaches for the magic again, for that furious spark, but it lies inert, refusing to rise to his command.

_If I'd been the one to teach you, you could've made a tsunami._

Tutu's voice rolls like a whisper in his mind, like early morning fog. Danny throws himself to the ground and rolls; the forest floor thunders where the fuath's hooves strike down. It prances backward to try again, spiking tail whipping through the air, and now the other one charges him, giant head low, and that _champron_ doesn't seem ridiculous with the gleaming spike it narrows to at the top pointed at his _head_.

Danny grabs once more for his rage, his hate, but something blocks him, some force as huge and solid as Mauna Kea, holding him back, keeping him from it.

_Those aren't your ways, ku'u ipo._

Danny screams his frustration to the night sky, forced to dodge and retreat before the fuath. All this anger blocks his magic. If he can't use it, he has _nothing_. He hopes Scott can lead the fuath to the creek, or keep them distracted until sunrise. Danny doesn't think he's going to make it.

_Don't you know? You're a Ka'aukai. If you only knew how, you could have the power of the entire ocean at your command._

Water, not fire. Fire is _Stiles'_ element, his spark; it's why they work well together. Danny can't use the raging power of flame burning his body because it's not his rage. Oh, he _is_ angry, but the fuath gave him this pure destructive fury. They're projecting their hatred onto him, and he's giving it form and targets. They probably intended to distract him from them long enough for them to come after him. But once again, Scott proves himself the pack's grounding force. Danny reaches for that grounding, for that sense of connection to each other and this land that Scott's accepted as his right as the alpha of Beacon Hills. He draws it into himself, and it beats back the fire, the battle rage receding enough that he can think clearly again.

He looks within and finds the spaces where the fire feels weakest, where it smolders and dies down. They're brief moments before another flame rears up, but in those gaps, Danny sees his magic. He dodges another hoof, yells for Scott to watch his back as the other fuath gallops around behind him, and he _looks_.

_The power of the entire ocean._

A hand lands on his shoulder, and a coarse mane whips his face. Everything's too fast for thought, but his magic rises up, pulls up, _pulses_ up. The hand belongs to Stiles, and Stiles is drawing his magic. It's what sparks do; what they've always done; but he's not drawing it to use it. He's drawing it for Danny like the moon calling in the tide. Up and up it surges, taking over Danny's body, his being, dousing the flames of hatred the fuath kindled in him.

The fuath scream, the most baleful sound Danny's ever heard, as their influence extinguishes. They turn, eyes blazing sickly greenish yellow, and charge.

Danny feels his magic, the strain of it against the control he keeps over it like a dam, trying to be the perfect emissary, the perfect Druid. "That's never going to happen," he whispers. He grabs Stiles' hands to anchor himself. He closes his eyes. Air rushes over them as the fuath rise up for the killing strike.

Danny breaks the dam.

And the power of the ocean pours over them.

Danny throws himself to the ground, tackling Stiles down with him, holding himself over Stiles like a breakwater, keeping the raging current of power from washing them away. He thinks Scott and Derek got themselves far enough away to be safe from the flood, but he can't lift his head to check. He stays down, curled tight over Stiles, who's laughing like a madman. Danny's shouting, cheering and screaming as his magic swirls into a waterspout, and then into a wall of water that surrounds the fuath, cycling around them, impenetrable.

He wraps his arms around Stiles and clutches him, one hand in Stiles' hair, the nails of the other digging into his shoulder, shaking uncontrollably with triumph, with rage, with terror, elation, release. Now Stiles is holding them up, somehow, buoying Danny above the magical tide. He buries his face in Stiles' neck and shudders.

The tide recedes, sucked into the hungry earth. Danny sags against Stiles, drained beyond memory. He's never expended this much at once, never let go without holding something back, something for emergencies, something for balance, something for fear. Now he's let everything go, and only this remains: tears. All the power of the ocean couldn't drain away his tears.

"Come on," Stiles murmurs in his ear as his hands stroke down Danny's back. "No more holding back."

The tears fall faster, freer, hard sobs shaking Danny's body. He lifts his head—a monumental effort—and fixes his blurry gaze on the fuath. He has nothing left, but he knows he will never again be as powerful as he is at this moment. "Leave this place," he gasps between sobs, voice thick from crying. "Tell the ones that sent you that this place is ours. They have no power here; they have no authority over our magic or our pack. We will meet any further attempts to meddle in our affairs with all of this and more."

The fuath seem calmer now, unaccustomed fear giving way to familiar hate. But Danny only knows that because he can read their expressions; he can't feel their anger anymore. One of them lowers its enormous head in what looks like assent. Danny knows, as surely as he's ever known anything, that his instructions will be carried out. They haven't just defeated the fuath; they've gotten the Order off their backs—permanently. He raises and quickly drops his arm, dispelling the water. It bursts inward, drenching the fuath while leaving him and Stiles dry. The fuath fix one more irate glare on Danny before turning and thundering away, northward toward the nearest boundary out of the pack's territory.

Danny pitches forward, drained. He barely has the energy to direct his fall toward Stiles. Stiles catches him anyway, wrapping one arm around Danny's lower back and taking his weight. Stiles' arms, ordinary human arms that can power home runs out of AT&T Park, support Danny at the same time they cradle him against Stiles' side, close to his racing heartbeat. "Oh, Danny," he murmurs into Danny's hair, "it's okay. It'll be okay, I promise."

"Howmch d'you hear?" Danny slurs. He can barely keep his eyes open, but he needs to know. Before he knows what damage he'll need to repair with his beloved and the pack once he's rested.

"Enough to know we still need to get better at talking about things," Stiles says. "Danny, I don't _want_ you to be happy or calm or nice all the time. I never did. Christ, when the darkness was at its worst, I remember wishing that you would have _one_ bad day, so I could believe being broken was okay." He presses a kiss to Danny's hair. "I need you to be honest with me. That's all I've ever needed." Distantly, Danny hears Scott calling them. They step carefully toward him, mostly in deference to Danny's weak state, but also because the ground feels spongy, saturated with magic. The others won't notice, but for Danny and Stiles, every step feels like sinking into a bog.

Stiles is still talking, filling the air around them with a constant stream of words. Danny hopes they're not important words, because he's maybe catching one sentence out of five.

"...amazing, what you did…"

"…have to call your grandmother..."

"...incredibly turned on, if I hadn't been fucking pissing myself in fear..."

"...grateful you even looked at my imperialist white ass, when you had so many better options—"

Danny musters enough energy to rasp, "In Beacon Hills?"

Stiles laughs hoarsely. "Hey," he says, "you're listening." He falls quiet for a minute and rests his cheek against Danny's head. Then he says, "I expected you to run screaming out of town once you found out about this shit."

"Thought about it," Danny mumbles. "Though' 'bout goin' to London. Fin' Jackson." He tilts his head to look at Stiles' face and realizes they've reached the Jeep. He lets Stiles maneuver him into the passenger seat, only yawning twice, and then cups Stiles' jaw in his palm. "But then I prob'ly wouldn't have magic. Def'nitely wouldn't have you."

"Is that a good thing?"

"Yes." Danny packs all his conviction into the word. "Wan'ed _you_. Imper'lis' white ass an' all."

Stiles stares at him for a minute, looking for something. Then he squeezes Danny's hand, looking shaken, and closes the door. Danny slumps against the window and doesn't fight the pull of his eyelids to close. Sitting helps. _Resting_ helps.

Stiles is quiet at first, as he drives them toward the condo. Then Danny feels the mischievous look Stiles shoots him from the corner of his eye. "You gonna teach me that trick with the giant spinning wall of water?" Stiles asks.

Danny doesn't open his eyes. He knows what Stiles looks like, how he's looking at him. It grounds him, that knowing, washes away the last dregs of someone else's anger. "Oh, Druid," he says affectionately, "you don't have it in you."

When they get back to the condo, they just manage to stagger to the bedroom, shoo Yogi off their bed and into her own, and strip their clothes off, letting them lie where they drop on the floor, before collapsing onto the bed.

Danny stares at his pillow. Never in his _life_ has he felt this drained, but now that he's in bed, he can't sleep. He closes his eyes and sees the fuath's wicked clawed hooves rushing toward his face, only now they both have the tristivori's face. Anger is still flooding his body, only he can't tell if it's his or the fuath's.

Then Stiles rolls to face him. He traces his fingers over Danny's forehead, his cheek, his jaw, his chin, just barely grazing the corner of his eyes, the edge of his lips. Danny sighs; it helps, and he doesn't _like_ that it helps, and he thinks that's probably the fuath's doing, too, and he _hates_ not being able to trust his own emotions.

"Danny," Stiles murmurs, keeping quiet in the early morning stillness, "will you let me take care of you?" His hand moving steadily down Danny's chest makes his meaning clear.

And, shit, _yes_. How did he not know he needed that? How does Stiles know Danny's needs better than Danny does? He rolls up so he's facing Stiles and moves his hand to Stiles' hip to tug him closer. "Do it," he grits out. He wants hard and fast, a squeezing grip and relentless motion. He wants to bite and claw and _hate_.

But Stiles is slow and _gentle_ , and Danny sobs his frustration. "For fuck's sake, Stiles, don't be fucking _dainty_. Harder, faster, come _on_."

Stiles keeps on like he didn't hear. He's doing all the things Danny likes—twisting his wrist on the upstroke, teasing his thumb over the dripping slit of Danny's cock—but he's doing it at about half-speed, all while he rests his forehead against Danny's and croons a string of endearments and…and _affirmations_ , for fuck's sake. Stiles' other hand is on Danny's back, not moving, just _holding_ him, cradling him like some fucking fragile vase, and—and _no_. "Claw me up," Danny rasps. " _Mark_ me. Take what you want."

Stiles' smile is a ray of sunshine, and Danny _hates it._ "I am," Stiles whispers. "You're amazing, you know that?" He puts a gentle squeeze into his next upstroke for emphasis, and Danny arches into it, hating himself. "You've been so strong, taking care of me." His fingers dip back on the downstroke, touching whisper-light over Danny's balls. "Now I know you're going to be strong enough to let me take care of you for a while."

No, no, no, he has to _stop talking_. He has to stop melting Danny, chipping away at his anger. "Stiles—"

"I know," Stiles whispers. "I know it hurts. And it's okay. Whatever you're feeling, it's okay."

That should make Danny angrier. _Of course_ it's okay. Who the fuck does Stiles think he is, giving Danny _permission_ to feel what he's feeling? But he thinks it's the first time anyone's ever told him that. The first time anyone's explicitly said that his anger, his _hatred_ are fine, that he doesn't have to shove them away and put on a happy face.

"I love you," Stiles says. He wets his fingers with Danny's precome, and the movement of his hand feels even gentler with that slickness easing the way. "No matter how sad or angry or scared you get. I love you, and it's all going to be okay." He punctuates this assertion with a gentle squeeze of the hand on Danny's shoulder, and fuck, that's it, Danny comes, not hard but _completely,_ every nerve and muscle in his body shaking and straining toward Stiles. Stiles just gathers him in closer, one strong arm braced across his back, one come-sticky hand dropping gentle, reassuring touches on Danny's thigh, his hip, the small of his back, as Danny cries himself to sleep for the first time since childhood.

* * *

"Stiles, how do you feel?"

No other player in major league baseball has been asked this question more often than Stiles. That isn't paranoia; Lydia's army of well-paid interns have statistically proven it. Even now, two years after his dramatic collapse during the Giants-Cardinals game, not a game or practice passed without some reporter asking how he's feeling. They really want to ask, "Do you feel homicidal? Suicidal? Psychopathic? Sociopathic?"

The popular press—which has no clue what it's talking about—threw around a lot of diagnostic terms during Stiles' time in the hospital. Once he got out, things got worse. Because suddenly everyone was seeing video of Stiles Stilinski, notorious bad boy of the National League, walking hand-in-hand through parks with his boyfriend, taking two-hour lunches with his father, roughhousing with a dark-haired, crooked-jawed guy nobody'd seen before. What had gone on in that hospital? Where was Stilinski the Asshole, the Ice Prince, the man who didn't care about anyone's feelings—especially his own? Something Had Happened.

Theories range from experimental drug trials to the removal of a brain tumor that had been suppressing his brain's emotional centers. Stiles sees the increased media attention as an opportunity to highlight mental illness. He's become one of America's most outspoken advocates of increased funding and decreased stigmatization for mental health treatment, serves as spokesman and fundraising cheerleader for NAMI, and can be counted on, every chance he gets, to sing Estella's praises to the moon and back.

Danny shifts against the back wall. He seldom comes to Stiles' postgame press conferences. The questions don't change; the answers don't change. But he's feeling raw today, recovering mentally and emotionally from the fuath's hateful onslaught, and he needs to be as close to Stiles as he can. The Giants beat the Rockies, so Stiles is in a good mood, and their next series is against the Dodgers, so everyone wants to know if the team's ready to face their fiercest rival. But of course the first question can't be about the game Stiles just finished, or the one he's playing next. _How do you feel, Stiles? (How close are you to cracking?)_

Danny braces himself against the double beat of anger. First comes his own genuine frustration that reporters still ask Stiles this question. Then he feels the echo of _other_ , of external anger trying to feel like his. With the fuath gone, he can feel the difference, the off-kilter timing and texture of it. But as long as he feels it at all, it'll keep shocking him, like the afterimage of the tristivori he still sees sometimes when he closes his eyes.

At the front of the room, Stiles leans toward the nearest mic. If it happens to belong, not to the reporter who asked the question, but to one from a local AM station that'd always been fair to him, even at his worst, well, that's not bias, just proximity. "I'm feeling great, Mitch, thanks for asking." The reporters chuckle, some with genuine amusement, others with poorly concealed dread that, at any moment, his upbeat veneer might crack and reveal a monster within.

Stiles' mental stability assured, they cycle through the standard baseball questions. Stiles shines through it all. He gestures expansively, smiles disarmingly, answers eloquently. He _owns_ that room, and, yeah, Danny sees why he makes people nervous; so complete a transformation must seem suspect from the outside.

Something under Danny's skin starts itching. That calm, settled sensation he's felt since they ran off the fuath becomes a restless turning, like a cat that can't find a comfortable spot. _More,_ it demands. _More calm. **More** settled. More Stiles. _But what's calmer and more settled than their homes and their dog and their pack a phone call away?

 _You know,_ whispers some traitor voice in his head. _You know what._ He does. How could he not?

They've talked about it. Grand gestures versus intimate moments. He knows what he wants to do, and that Stiles will eat it up. Does he dare? Does he dare _not_?

The questions die down, the reporters ready to move on to the next player, the next game. Danny squares his shoulders and steps forward, letting his magic calm him. Stiles looks up, feeling the tug. He smiles when his eyes meet Danny's, though he looks confused. "I have a question," Danny says. The corners of Stiles' lip twitch upward, and he gestures Danny on. "Mr. Stilinski, how do you feel about marriage?"

The strangled gasp that runs through the room sounds _pained,_ as everyone who was leaving tries to set up again. Danny's only tangentially aware of it. His gaze locks with Stiles', and his heart pounds in his chest, blood rushing so loudly in his ears he's amazed everyone can't hear it. But his hands are steady.

Stiles' usually expressive face stills, but he chokes out a laugh and says, "Ask me right."

Danny takes two confident steps forward to stand in front of Stiles. He won't kneel; they've talked about that, too. They have to look each other in the eye for this. Equals. "Stiles," he says, taking Stiles' hands, "I love you, and I want every day with you." God, he wants it so badly he tastes it on the back of his tongue and feels its weight at the bottom of his heart. "I want your brightest humor and your meanest sarcasm. I want your smiles and your tears. I want to go to bed holding each other like romance novel heroes and wake up with you flopped all over me, or rolled away with the blankets, you big jerk. I want to make love to you, and fight with you, and have days where we can't be apart and days where we can't be in the same room. I want it for the rest of our lives. Please, Stiles, will you please marry me?"

"You _asshole_ ," Stiles breathes, but he's laughing, and tears drip off his eyelashes onto Danny's cheeks. "You didn't even—do you know why I went out with Scott the night Derek showed up?" Danny's lost the script. Stiles hasn't said yes, and he hasn't said no, and he's talking about _Scott_ and calling Danny an asshole. He shakes his head, not trusting his voice until Stiles gives him an answer. "I bought a ring, okay?" Stiles says. "I bought a ring and made a reservation for Siren, and then I made my best friend take me out to keep me from _freaking out_ that you would say no. And then _fucking_ Derek and his _fucking_ fuath, and I couldn't—"

"Stiles. It's okay. Make a new reservation. Go freak out with Scott again, and then ask me. You'll get your big, splashy moment; I'll get my private, intimate one. Everyone's happy."

"Will you say yes?"

"Will _you_?"

Stiles squeezes Danny's hands. " _Yes._ " He raises his voice for the benefit of the cameras still rolling. " _Hell_ yes. _All_ the yes."

Danny's arms go around Stiles' back, Stiles squeezes back so hard it's impossible to know who's holding up whom anymore. It doesn't matter, because they know by now that everything just _works better_ together. Joy floods Danny's body, and he loses himself in the flow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and kudos welcomed!
> 
> If you're curious or were confused, [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra) is why they named the dog Yogi, and [this](http://www.ibizanhoundrescue.com/gallery.html) is what she looks like.
> 
> [tumbl](http://hugealienpie.tumblr.com) into home plate with me


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